Senate Defeats Phony Equal Rights Amendment Promoting Abortions Up to Birth

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 27, 2023   |   5:09PM   |   Washington, DC

The U.S. Senate rejected another attempt by the pro-abortion movement to resurrect a failed U.S. Constitutional amendment in a vote Thursday.

Although the stated intent of the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment is to guarantee equal rights for all citizens no matter what their sex, pro-life leaders warn – and abortion activists confirm – that it would be used to create a “right” to abortion on demand all across the United States.

U.S. Senate Joint Resolution 4 would have declared the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratified, even though the deadline to pass it expired decades ago and several states recently rescinded their support.

To pass, the resolution needed 60 votes, but only 51 senators supported it Wednesday. The vote was 51-47.

Douglas Johnson, director of the ERA Project of the National Right to Life Committee, said the ERA is dead, and numerous federal judges have confirmed it. He pointed to a Feb. 28 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that rejected a case from Illinois and Nevada arguing that the amendment should be ratified.

“ERA-revival advocates continue to deflect news media attention away from the fact that the federal courts have consistently rejected legal claims that the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment remains viable,” Johnson said.

In 2020, Virginia became the 38th and final state needed to ratify the amendment. However, it did so more than 40 years after the deadline set by Congress. Similarly, Nevada and Illinois also voted to ratify the ERA decades after the 1979 deadline.

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Meanwhile, several other states rescinded their votes to ratify the amendment after learning that it would be used to create a “right” to abortion on demand.

All this means that the ERA cannot be ratified. But pro-abortion groups have been trying desperately to resurrect it anyway.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, said it’s clear from the Senate resolution and other recent actions by the Biden administration that some politicians care more about abortion on demand than democracy.

“It took President Biden five seconds to announce that he is going all in on a radical pro-abortion agenda to gin up the base going into 2024, and his party is falling in lock step,” Dannenfelser said. “They will rewrite all the rules and the Constitution itself to impose abortion on demand, paid for by the taxpayer, in all 50 states.”

For years, federal judges — including those by pro-abortion Democrats and even the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an idol of abortion activists — consistently have said it’s too late to ratify the ERA.

Fact checkers at leftist news outlets like the Washington Post have, too.

“Every time the issue has been litigated in federal court, most recently in 2021, the pro-ERA side has lost, no matter whether the judge was appointed by a Democrat or a Republican,” the Washington Post Fact Checker wrote February 2022. It gave “Four Pinocchios” to a claim by former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, that the federal archivist was obligated to certify the ERA as part of the Constitution.

Responding after the vote Thursday, March for Life president Jeanne Mancini said pro-abortion lawmakers need to stop pushing abortion on demand, which a strong majority of Americans oppose.

“This deceptive amendment would be used as a tool by the abortion industry to expand abortion access at the expense of women’s health, vulnerable unborn children, and American taxpayers,” Mancini said. “It’s time for Congress to listen to the will of the people and prioritize life-affirming action that protects and honors all Americans, including those in the womb.”

To amend the U.S. Constitution, Congress and two thirds of the state legislatures must vote to approve the amendment.