The Minnesota legislature is currently considering two bills to pass “Equal Rights” amendments, one to amend Minnesota Constitution and one calling on Congress to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These amendments, under the banner of “equality,” would strip women of opportunities and could be used as the basis of a constitutional “right” to abortion.
Women already have equal rights under the 5th and 14th Amendments, and numerous Minnesota laws prohibit sex-based discrimination. These proposed amendments are unnecessary and would do far more harm than good.
The federal Equal Rights Amendment officially failed in 1982 when it passed the agreed upon deadline without the necessary 38 ratifying states. Minnesota’s SF 47 (HF197) urges Congress to pass a resolution stating that the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified, despite the fact that three of the ratifying states missed the deadline by over 35 years, and five other states rescinded their approval. Even a staunch supporter of the amendment, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, questioned the legitimacy of this tactic.
Minnesota’s proposed ERA (SF37 / HF173) builds on the language of the federal ERA, with the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity alongside biological sex. Such language erases women by ignoring the biological distinctions between men and women. Equating gender identity with biological sex would essentially remove Title IX protections on women’s and girls’ sports, costing female athletes opportunities for titles, awards, and higher levels of competition. Additionally, women’s safety and privacy would be violated by granting biological males access to women’s spaces, including locker rooms, showers, and female prisons. This does not advance equality, but undermines the rights of women.
The Federal ERA poses a similar danger by making the law intentionally blind to the differences between men and women. And as Jennifer Braceras, director of the Independent Women’s Legal Center has pointed out, the ERA could easily be interpreted to include gender identity because it does not define “sex.” In fact, when the ERA was first being debated in the 1970s, then-Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, warned that the act could lead to the erasure of female sports and elimination of opportunities for women.
Additionally, multiple pro-abortion groups, including the ACLU, the National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood have urged national and state ERAs for the purpose of enshrining abortion in the U.S. and state constitutions. Nor is this merely speculative. In both New Mexico and Connecticut, Equal Rights Amendment language has been used to uphold a legal “right” to taxpayer-funded abortions.
Abortion sacrifices the lives of the most vulnerable for the convenience of those with more power than them. This is fundamentally at odds with equal rights. Furthermore, abortion leads to vast social harms that disproportionately impact women and girls. Enshrining it in the federal or state constitution does nothing to protect rights.
Women and girls deserve far better than an amendment that that would rob them of opportunities, safety, and privacy. Neither the Minnesota nor U.S. Constitution need an amendment that would erase women and sacrifice the lives of vulnerable children in the womb.
