Women News August 25, 2009

Jane: This Saturday, about 500 Sarasota and Manatee women and men celebrated the 89th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote. The celebration was hosted by the Sarasota and Manatee Councils on the Status of Women and the Sarasota and Manatee Leagues of Women Voters. Unfortunately, the right to vote is the only constitutional right women have.

Women still don’t have constitutional equality in the US. Joan, many people believe that the ERA has been passed even though it has not been ratified by three quarters of the states as required by Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution. It needs the ratification of just three more states, Florida being one to make it law.

Joan: Jane, to better understand what is going on with the ERA, let's quickly look at its history. When the ERA was introduced in 1972, it had a statement in its pre-amble providing for ratification within seven years. When that didn’t happen, Congress extended the deadline three years, through 1982. It still didn’t happen. For this reason, a new ERA has been introduced in Congress every year since then, but nothing has happened with those either. Some ERA supporters argue that a new amendment is a start-over approach, that we would have to start the ratification by the states all over again, and this might not be a good time since many states have become more conservative and, shall we say. less woman-friendly. What those who opposed the start-over approach want to do is work for the ratification of the last three states then put it before the appropriate governmental entity for certification. They believe that because the deadline is in the preamble and not the amendment itself, Congress can override the deadline, as it did in 1979 when it extended the deadline by three years. Other supporters believe we should follow both approaches, in other words keep fighting for those three states but also work on the start-over approach without a deadline.

Jane: Meanwhile, on July 21, 2009, Representative Carolyn Maloney introduced the ERA in the House of Representatives as House Joint Resolution 61 (H.J.Res. 61). This resolution is identical to the ERA which was submitted to the states for ratification in 1972, except that it does not contain a ratification time limit. At a press conference that day outside the U.S. Capitol Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, pleased with this new introduction of the amendment, called for a floor vote on the resolution during the current Congress

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), in a letter to House members, argues that H.J.Res. 61 implicitly requires tax-funded abortions on demand. In this way they link every right for women with abortion. The letter also says that NRLC opposes H.J.Res. 61, unless it is amended to be neutral toward abortion, and that NRLC "will include the roll call on passage in its scorecard of key pro-life roll calls of the 111th Congress."

Joan: I know that is a big fear but the ERA does not mention abortion. Rather, it exactly parallels the language of the fifteenth and nineteenth amendments, both guaranteeing voting rights. Here is the full text of the ERA:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

As you can see, the ERA has nothing to do with abortions