More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Dobbs v. Jackson was a clear indication that the Supreme Court will allow states broader latitude to pass laws that discriminate against women. This new reality makes final recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment more important than ever.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2023 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)
The truth is that the ERA is very much alive today, and this terrifies anti-equality activists and columnists alike. We don’t need to start over. Like Professor Tribe said, we have met the requirements of Article V and just need the ERA to be recognized by Congress as valid. It has enormous potential to protect reproductive rights and freedom, trans rights and much more.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher ruled last week that the state’s 1931 abortion ban violates the Michigan Constitution.
In a forceful, 39-page order permanently blocking the law, Gleicher ruled that the abortion ban violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the state Constitution. She rejected Republicans’ argument that pregnancy is not an intrusion on women’s bodies: “Bodily autonomy is inherent to human dignity” and “eliminating abortion access will force pregnant women to forgo control of the integrity of their own bodies.”
After realizing that gender equality wasn’t a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Rosie Couture and her friend Belan Yeshigeta founded Generation Ratify, an organization dedicated to adding the ERA to the Constitution. Other women-led organizations, such as The Feminist Front and The Ruth Project, joined the fight.
“Advocating for the ERA means advocating for a fight that began with many of our grandmothers.”
When Justice Samuel Alito did the final proofreading of his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, he must have felt a great sense of moral rectitude and satisfaction at the fulfillment of a half-century-long mission.
But he should also have been a bit nervous about the thinness of some of his assertions and the vulnerability of some of his legal analysis. That last reading might have gone something like this.
We need to socialize men differently and create a united force of activists. Men need to be a part of the larger conversation, and work to dismantle the idea that reproductive choice is simply “a women’s problem.”
Reproductive choice is not just a women’s issue. We all are well aware that it does not take just a single person to get pregnant. If Roe falls, it will affect everyone.
The U.S. legal and political tradition has a long history of failing to recognize women’s claims to autonomy as individuals possessing citizenship rights equal to those of men. Now, reproductive rights are in grave danger—but the ERA could change things.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in in this biweekly round-up.
This week: Michigan governor appeals to state Supreme Court to enshrine abortion rights in constitution; track star Allyson Felix plans to retire; Florida and Oklahoma move to criminalize abortion; Ukrainian refugees face a lack of sexual and reproductive healthcare; U.N. funds Bilan Project to give a voice to female journalists in Somalia; and more.
Approximately one in three lawyers are women. Fewer than two in 10 lawyers are people of color. And only one in 115 justices of the Supreme Court has ever been a woman of color. That number could soon double as Ketanji Brown Jackson has become the first Black woman ever nominated to the highest court in the country.
Madiba Dennie and Elizabeth Hira are uniquely positioned to discuss this historic nomination: They’re both women of color, they’re both attorneys, and they both work at the Brennan Center for Justice on issues of democracy and equity. This discussion highlights the networks they have relied on, the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain, and the democracy they hope to build.
As I witnessed several U.S. senators smear and disrespect Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearings, I wanted to shout these words: “America, get your knee off our necks.”
Jackson should be confirmed with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. However, that’s not the world in which we find ourselves, But history will soon be made, and Judge Jackson will become Justice Jackson—with a bipartisan vote. And from henceforth all Black women and girls will finally see themselves on our highest court.
