Lorie Honor doesn’t understand why Joe Biden wouldn’t want to leave office with the legacy of being the president who made the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) law, and she’s not alone.
I must admit that I was totally amazed to read this story, and to realise that the amendment has sat, uncertified, since it was written over a 100 years ago: It was proposed by Congress to be added to the U.S. Constitution over 50 years ago; and ratified by the number of states required over 40 years ago. All it needs is for the sitting president to instruct the National Archivist to officially certify it, which should be a routine, paperwork operation. I should add here that President Trump, in his first term, actually wrote a letter to the Archivist instructing him NOT to certify the amendment!!
Honor is just one of many equal rights activists practically begging Biden to enshrine reproductive rights for millions of women into law by directing the archivist of the United States to certify the Equal Rights Amendment before the end of his presidency. The law addresses women’s equal rights in general, not just reproductive rights.
“A tiny, tiny percentage of people are not on board with the ERA, and a lot of them are our representatives in Washington,” said Honor, who is co-founder of Staten Island Women Who March, and chief of staff for Vote Equality, a national organization whose mission is to bring awareness to the fact that gender equality is not in the U.S. Constitution. “So we’re letting this teeny, tiny, frightened, male-centered minority dictate to the rights, health and welfare of millions and millions of Americans.”
Some politicians, including New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, are publicly asking Biden to make this happen as he leaves the oval office. “President Biden has always been an advocate for women, and there is no better way to cement his legacy as president than to certify the Equal Rights Amendment,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand at a recent press conference.
“During a time when women’s rights are under systematic attack, we need the Equal Rights Amendment now more than ever. Today, more than half of all Americans do not have equal protection under the law and do not have access to the full range of reproductive care. Certifying the Equal Rights Amendment will be our best chance to ensure our hard-won civil liberties – same-sex marriage, the right to reproductive health care, access to birth control, fertility treatments, contraception – cannot be eroded. I strongly urge President Biden to stand with the women of this country and do what is right,” she added.
After the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision in 2022, many activists have highlighted the importance of publishing the ERA as part of the U.S. Constitution. “The amendment would instantly provide the most effective safeguards to post-Dobbs attacks on women’s health, and would also serve as a bulwark against a national ban on abortion that President-elect Trump and congressional Republican leaders have threatened to enact,” said Gillibrand in a written statement.
Important as reproductive rights are, the ERA is much broader and therefore covers women’s overall equal rights; most of us, today, assume that this problem was taken care of decades ago but apparently not.
The ERA is the only constitutional amendment that has met all requirements for ratification yet remains uncertified and unpublished by the archivist, according to Gillibrand.
“The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) stands as a critical safeguard for women’s rights and is particularly significant to the future of women in this country, given the political horizon we are facing with the incoming administration,” said New York City Council Member Julie Menin, (D-Manhattan) co-chair of the NYC Council’s Women’s Caucus. “At this critical juncture, we all have a responsibility to the women who came before us to not only uphold and protect the rights secured, but to advance and institutionalize these rights in our government in the form of the Equal Rights Amendment. I am proud to join Senator Gillibrand’s call for President Biden to direct the archivist to certify the ERA, so it is enshrined in our country’s rights to serve as a bulwark against regressive policies and attacks on women’s rights,” she added.
The ERA, written in 1923, promised equal rights for women and to establish the premise that sex-based distinctions in access to reproductive care would be unconstitutional. This means abortion bans would violate a constitutional right to sex equality since such restrictions would single out women for unfair denial of medical treatment based on sex. Some state-level Equal Rights Amendments have already been passed to provide a constitutional basis for reproductive equality, but this is an issue that demands federal/constitutional confirmation.
“The ERA was drafted by NYU law grad Crystal Eastman over 100 years ago and unveiled in Seneca Falls, New York in 1923. So, the women of New York and this country have been fighting for over a century to get ourselves into our own constitution. It is now or never. President Biden is the only one who has the power—right now—to put us in the constitution where we belong. It cannot ever truly be the ‘people’s constitution’ until it reflects all of us,” said Kate Kelly at the Center for American Progress.
In a White House memo Biden said: “I have been a strong supporter of the ERA ever since I first ran for the Senate as a 29-year-old. We must recognize the clear will of the American people and definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution. It is long past time that we put all doubt to rest.”
I would therefore say to Biden, “Get off your ass and get it done before you leave office”.
