Virginia Democrats Rush to Pass Dead Equal Rights Amendment

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 25: Marchers channel the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment in
Elijah Nouvelage/Getty
Dr. Susan Berry

Virginia Democrat lawmakers – celebrating their recent ascendance to power in the state legislature – passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), decades after its ratification deadline.

In recent decades, the amendment is considered to have become a “Trojan horse” for abortion and gender ideology by pro-family and pro-life groups.

“The people of Virginia spoke last November, voting a record number of women into the House of Delegates and asking us to ratify the ERA,” said House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, according to NPR. “It is inspiring to see the amendment finally be considered, voted on and passed — long-awaited recognition that women deserve.”

The New York Times, however, admitted a “tidal wave” of mass immigration over several decades gave Democrats the victory in Virginia in the House of Delegates and the state senate last November.

Nevertheless, Virginia Democrats, like many in their party, fully embrace abortion on demand. The state is also led by Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam – whose comments in favor of a “discussion” between a mother and a physician about whether an infant who survives a third-trimester abortion should be allowed to live – led to a national firestorm over infanticide in January 2019.

The approval of ERA by Virginia Democrats, however, comes a week after the U.S. Justice Department delivered an opinion that asserted the amendment is dead and cannot be revived by Congress.

The ruling affirmed the original deadline for ratification of the ERA, set by Congress in 1972, is still valid.

“Congress may not revive a proposed amendment after a deadline for its ratification has expired,” the ruling stated. “Should Congress wish to propose the amendment anew, it may do so through the same procedures required to propose an amendment in the first instance, consistent with Article V of the Constitution.”

The ratification period was extended to 1982, but, in National Organization for Women, Inc. v State of Idaho, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that deadline expired as well:

The Administrator informs us that no state transmitted a ratification of the Amendment during the period after the original expiration date of March 22, 1979. Congress has not passed any additional extension.

Consequently, the Amendment has failed of adoption no matter what the resolution of the legal issues presented here, and the Administrator informs us that he will not certify to Congress that the Amendment has been adopted.

Hollywood celebrity-activists, such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Alyssa Milano, claiming U.S. women still do not have equal rights under the Constitution, rallied for Democrats to take control of the Virginia legislature as they continued the narrative that Virginia could become the 38th and final state to ratify the ERA.

Only 35 states, however, had ratified the ERA within Congress’s original seven-year deadline, and several states that originally ratified the amendment have rescinded those actions. The Justice Department’s ruling dismisses Virginia’s attempts to pass it.

“Abortion advocates are still trying to ram through a 100-year-old bad idea,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement sent to Breitbart News.

Hawkins and her organization have worked to defeat the ERA.

“The ERA should be called the ‘Everything Related to Abortion’ act as groups like NARAL push it forward to prop up the failing Roe v. Wade,” she added, explaining:

The ERA is a Trojan horse for abortion, an attempt to create an actual hook for abortion in the Constitution, something Roe never did. But as the Department of Justice recently said, the ERA has failed twice to pass Congressional deadlines and is over. If ERA advocates really believed in this movement, they would start again and work the Constitutional process in a timely and lawful manner.

In an interview with Breitbart News, Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs for the March for Life, noted the irony that suffragist Alice Paul was the original author of the ERA in 1923.

“And Alice Paul was a direct successor to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and to Susan B. Anthony in taking over the suffragist newsletter, and was very adamantly opposed to abortion,” he said.

The ERA specifically states that a person’s sex may not be considered in making a legal preference.

The pro-life and pro-family Eagle Forum noted the likely effects of the ERA in a press statement:

It seems Congress and ERA supporters have no problem making political statements under the guise of bringing women equal representation. In reality, the ERA effectively erases women in its effort to create equality through a sex-neutral society. Upon ratification, the days of women-only prisons and shelters, accommodations for pregnant and nursing women, and government-created programs for women, like WIC will be no more.

But, more importantly, the ERA will be the method Virginia Democrats use to facilitate their abortion-on-demand agenda. Last session, they supported House Bill 2491, which allowed for third-trimester abortions and led to discussions on infanticide.

“It is clear Virginia Democrats have failed to consider the consequences to both women and the state in their haste to pass the ERA,” Anne Schlafly Cori, Eagle Forum chairman, added.

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