Democrats revive the Equal Rights Amendment from a long legal limbo -- facing an unlikely uphill battle to get it enshrined into law
Democrats in Congress are making a new push to get the long-dormant proposed Equal Rights Amendment enshrined into law.
- Democrats in Congress are making a new push to get the long-dormant proposed Equal Rights Amendment enshrined into law.
- Efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to recognize women’s rights have faced major challenges for the past century.
- Most recently, in April 2023 Senate Republicans blocked a similar resolution that would let states ratify the amendment, despite an expired deadline.
- Here’s a quick summary of how the country got to this point and the barriers that still exist to adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
‘Ladies against women’
- The amendment could help protect women’s access to reproductive health services, including abortion and contraception.
- Proponents also believe that the ERA can be used to push back against legislation that threatens the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
- The push for equal rights first heated up in the 1920s after women gained the right to vote.
- World War II opened many doors for women, who filled gaps in the labor force while men were off fighting.
- In 2023, conservative women’s groups like the Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America continue to make the same arguments against the ERA.
Another chance?
- Some constitutional experts see Democrats’ latest attempt to codify the ERA as a political stunt rather than a legitimate legal move.
- More than a dozen states have ERA equivalents that protect women’s equal rights in their constitutions.
- In the current polarized political environment, abortion access promises to serve as a political lightening rod in coming years.
- This is an updated version of an article originally published on Dec. 13, 2018.