State ERAs Can Protect Reproductive Rights Post-Dobbs

Pennsylvania’s highest court held in January that the state’s statutory ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion is sex discrimination under the state’s Equal Rights Amendment—the first time a state supreme court has ruled on how state ERAs impact reproductive rights since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dismantled the federal constitutional right to abortion.

This decision proves that reproductive rights have a future post-Dobbs—one firmly rooted in state-level ERAs and their untapped potential to protect and advance reproductive rights.

(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)

The ERA: A New Foundation for Equality in the United States

In 21st century America, the battle for gender equality persists. In nearly a century after it was first proposed in Congress, the Equal Rights Amendment’s (ERA) simple guarantee that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” is still seen as a radical notion by some.

Yet despite opposition and obstacles, the ERA is closer than ever to enactment. Our 18th century Constitution—drafted without the inclusion of women, people of color native people or immigrants—is the most difficult to amend in the world. Yet, the ERA has met all of the Constitutional requirements for amendment set out in Article V.

(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)

In Hawai‘i, Where Traditional Midwives Can’t Practice

Two days after Alia Louise Stenback survived the Aug. 8 wildfire in Lāhainā, Maui—the deadliest wildfire the United States has seen in over 100 years—she parked herself at a medical tent. One month later, with no ambulances around to provide transport to a hospital, her grandson was born. With a donated birthing kit and the support of traditional midwives, Stenback “caught [her] grandson.”

Stenback grants herself “outlaw” status because she provided care during labor without a midwifery license in assumed violation of Hawaii’s HRS §457J, otherwise known as the Midwifery Restriction Law. Originally passed in the name of maternal and infant safety, the law is the subject of impassioned protests, new legislative proposals and a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation.

Supreme Court Is Considering Nationwide Restrictions on Most Common Abortion Method: Medication Abortion

Not content with overturning Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion movement now wants to restrict medication abortion—even in states where abortion remains legal.

But a decision to place more restrictions on medication abortion will not stop people from getting abortion pills—it will merely reshape, not extinguish, the landscape of access to abortion pills.

Why the ERA Is Needed—Even With the 14th Amendment

For years, critics have claimed that women don’t need the Equal Rights Amendment because the Supreme Court has secured women’s rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

At the time it was ratified in the 19th century, no one thought that the 14th Amendment protected women; its purpose was to end slavery. Thanks to pioneering lawsuits by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 1970s, women did gain a measure of equal rights under the 14th Amendment, but lawyers know that those victories were limited.

(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)

The Ms. Q&A with Nasrin Sotoudeh: The Iranian Activist on Global Solidarity, Her Time in Prison and Being an Optimist  

Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer and activist who has consistently fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities and others under persecution in Iran. Over the years, Sotoudeh has spent much of her time in prison, having been arrested for protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law and resisting authoritarian rule. While in custody in 2022, Sotoudeh wrote to Ms. editors detailing the plight of women in Iran and called for global solidarity around women’s rights.  Ms. executive editor Kathy Spillar spoke with Nasrin and her husband Reza Khandan last month.

“The world has gone through darker days. … We’ve made our way forward through those horrific and dark events and times, and so, why not again? As long as I’m alive, I’m just naturally an optimist.”

So Who Gets the Kids? Divorce in the Age of Equal Parenting

The Alice Hector–Robert Young divorce case epitomizes the impact of gendered parenting stereotypes held in custody cases. Is there a side feminists should take?

(For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION, Alfred A. Knopf—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.)

Supreme Court to Hear Two Key Cases on Abortion Access

Rather than being done with the issue of abortion, the Supreme Court has taken up two cases this term that could have further disastrous effects on abortion access. One case could lead to limits on access to one of the two drugs used for medication abortion, and the other could allow states to ban emergency abortion care to save a patient’s life.

Decisions in both cases would have effects nationwide—illustrating the chaos and confusion that the Dobbs decision has created for providers and patients.

The Upcoming SCOTUS Abortion Pill Case Could Be the Next Dobbs

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week, on Tuesday, March 26, in a case against the abortion pill mifepristone, filed against the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of anti-abortion doctors and dentists. The Court will issue its ruling by summer—just months before the fall election, when voters will decide on the next U.S. president and control of Congress.

“This case is not based on any kind of medical or scientific fact around abortion. It’s purely based on politics,” said Elisa Wells of the abortion pill advocacy group Plan C. “The fact that it’s been allowed to progress so far in the court system is outrageous.”

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Abortion Bans = Sex Discrimination

On Jan. 29, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a law banning Medicaid funding for abortion discriminates against women, in violation of the state’s Equal Rights Amendment. The decision overturned a 1985 case saying the ERA did not apply to abortion.

“The Pennsylvania case is so sweeping and strong in the way that it identifies interference with reproductive decision-making as a form of sex discrimination and as part of the historic pattern of oppression of women. It’s really beautiful,” said Susan J. Frietsche, co-executive director of the Women’s Law Project, which filed the case on behalf of Pennsylvania abortion providers.

(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection. It also appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)