Happy New Year! The General Assembly opens on January 9, 2019 at noon.
VSHL is back at work and we need your help to fight a proposed pro-abortion state ERA!
- Please contact your Delegate and Senator right away and tell him or her you oppose the pro-abortion ERA. Use this link to find the contact information for your Senator and Delegate:
- Attend opening day of the General Assembly. More information on this below.
- Please share the information in this email with your family and friends. Help VSHL educate all Virginians. Share this alert on Facebook and twitter.
- Invite a speaker from VSHL to come and speak with members of your church or organization about how the so-called ERA will lead to abortion-on-demand, for any reason, until birth and funded by taxpayers.
Pro-abortion groups are attempting to gain support in Virginia for the so-called Equal Rights Amendment.
The effect of the ERA in states that passed it has proven that the agenda is to dismantle pro-life laws, including to force states to pay for all abortions with tax dollars. i.e. The case was NM Right to Choose / NARAL v. Johnson, No. 1999-NMSC-005 – you can read or download it here.
This new support is a serious threat to the protection of innocent unborn children. More detailed information can be found at the VSHL website. Please contact your Virginia Delegate and Senator this week and ask him or her to oppose the ERA.
Concerned women and men will be gathering at the SunTrust plaza at Main and 10th streets, Wednesday 9:30 am, January 9th. From there we will visit the legislators’ offices and share our concerns about the ERA and its pro-abortion connections. Please spread the word and try to join us. Children may attend if their parents wish. Teens and college age women especially welcome.
We know many pro-abortion people are expected on Wednesday morning. Our peaceful presence is required to give our elected officials courage. Pro-abortion forces may make a lot of noise but the calm reasonable voices of concerned pro-life Virginians can prevail if we all do something!
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For more info or to register to attend please contact the VSHL office. [email protected] or 804-560-8745.
Simple facts about the ERA and Abortion
Don’t be Fooled!
The ERA is about abortion. It is a thinly veiled attempt to strip all pro-life laws in America. Major advocates for passage of the ERA include the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. All these pro-abortion groups agree that the ERA is essential to preventing new pro-life laws from being passed and to strip states of other active laws.
In fact, many prominent pro-abortion organizations such as the ACLU have argued, for 15 years and more, that the proper legal interpretation of the language contained in the 1972 ERA, and similar language in the ERAs adopted by some states, is to invalidate all restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortions — and, indeed, to invalidate virtually any other law that distinguishes between abortion and other “medical procedures.”
Their legal argument boils down to this: only females seek abortions, so any government policy that restricts access to abortion, or that treats abortion differently from procedures performed on men is, on its face, an abridgement of “rights . . . on account of sex,” which is precisely what the ERA forbids.
The effect of the ERA in states that passed it has proven that the agenda is to dismantle pro-life laws, including to force states to pay for all abortions with tax dollars. i.e. The case was NM Right to Choose / NARAL v. Johnson, No. 1999-NMSC-005 – you can read or download it here.
The ERA is dangerous to all of Virginia’s reasonable protective laws, such as the Women’s Right to Know law, Parental Consent and Partial Birth Abortion law. If passed the courts could decide that any of these laws are an impediment to women’s access to abortion and overturned. The ERA is designed to enshrine abortion as a basic human right that women must have, and pro-life laws interfere with that.
Unborn girls and boys will be among the greatest victims if the Supreme Court were to allow this version of the ERA to be resurrected. If a new ERA with abortion neutralizing language were offered, it might provide appropriate legal protection to states’ rights to pass pro-life laws. It is not possible to add such an amendment to this version of the ERA.
What you can do to help?
Once again, please contact your Delegate and Senator right away and tell them you opposed the pro-abortion ERA. Use this link to find the contact information for your Senator and Delegate.
LifeNews Note: Olivia Gans is the director of the Virginia Society for Human Life.
