The Consequences of Implementing the ERA (Illinois Family Spotlight #090)

Monte Larrick recently caught up with Elise Bouc, the State Chairwoman of Stop ERA Illinois. They discuss the push to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the United State’s Constitution, only requiring two more states to approve it before it becomes a federal amendment.

Please contact your state representative and ask him or her to please vote NO on the Equal Rights Amendment.

When the ERA was stopped back in the 1970s, people understood that the wording of the Amendment was flawed, Bouc explains, and we need to separate the discussion of “equal opportunities” for women from this proposal. The fact is, the ERA would harm women and harm unborn children.

Larrick and Bouc also discussed the legal question of whether the ERA push can be “resurrected,” since its seven-year deadline passed a long time ago. Based upon the makeup of the United States Supreme Court, it is anyone’s guess how it would rule on the question. If it chooses to resurrect it, then only two more states would be needed to ratify it to the U.S. Constitution, Illinois and one other state.

“Equal rights” sounds good, Larrick pointed out, but Bouc explained that the problem is in the wording of the Amendment. We already have laws on the books regarding equal opportunity for women, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is where disputes can be rectified.

The ERA, Bouc said, is being used by extremists as a vehicle to bring about extreme change in our country. For example, using women and “equal rights” as a cover, their goal is to remove all abortion restrictions in all 50 states. This would mean the elimination of parental notification laws.

“It’s all about slogans and perceptions,” Bouc explains, “and they are leading women to falsely believe that this ERA is going to solve all their problems — and it won’t.”

Bouc relates the story of what happened in Pennsylvania on the issue of car insurance, a state with its own ERA. A lawsuit was brought on behalf of men complaining about sex discrimination in that women paid lower car insurance premiums. The state government then acted to make it legal for women to have lower premiums since they have fewer accidents. Then the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over-turned that law, based on “legal strict scrutiny” in light of the state’s ERA language not allowing for any distinctions based on sex.

Larrick and Bouc also discussed the ERA’s potential impact upon restrooms, locker rooms, the military draft, and age of consent laws. Bouc said that the Amendment is “poorly written” and “overreaching.”

People need to get informed, and help educate their friends and family, and contact their state legislators.

Bouc’s article at the Illinois Family Institute’s website is also worth reading: The ERA Harms Our Unborn Children. IFI also has a one-pager on the issue containing helpful facts about the Amendment.