Equal Rights

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Equal Rights

Overview

• Winning the right to vote did not end the American woman’s struggle for equality.
• In 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was first introduced in Congress.
• Ever since its introduction, this proposed amendment has met with opposition, much of it from men.
• In the 1970s, the most organized opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment came from a woman.

first response was positive—within the first year, 22 states had ratified the amendment. But then, the positive response dimmed. By the 1979 deadline, the ERA lacked three crucial votes. Congress extended the deadline by three years, but 1982 came and went without ratification. Phyllis Schlafly's Influence The reason the ratifications stopped coming was due to organized opposition against the ERA. The renewed push to ratify the ERA had happened while several other key events in American history were occurring.

• declining protests against the Vietnam War
• the ongoing civil rights movement
• countercultural movements active on college campuses around the nation.

The ERA movement was sometimes lumped in with these different political and social causes, which did not help it.

The success of the civil rights movement in the 1960s served to renew efforts to revive the Equal Rights Amendment. The proposed ERA outlined several points:

• The first section acknowledged and protected a person’s rights, regardless of sex.
• The second section gave Congress power to enforce the amendment.
• The third section said that the amendment would take effect two years after it had been ratified.

Congress passed the ERA in 1972. The next step was ratification by 38 states before the deadline of 1979. The proposed amendment made the rounds to state legislatures for ratification. At

The Equal Rights Amendment

civil rights cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe.

• ERA supporters worked at legally and politically extending this recognition to include women.
• Ever since the amendment failed to get the critical two-thirds majority it needed in 1982, groups supporting the ERA have redoubled their efforts to get the amendment ratified.

• Traditional Americans distrusted the changes the 1960s had brought, and they were especially suspicious of the Equal Rights Amendment.
• The National Organization of Women brought negative attention to the ERA when it endorsed the amendment.
• A lawyer and conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly fed on these fears as she organized opposition to the ratification of the ERA. She stirred up an emotional response by warning of unintended consequences if the Equal Rights Amendment passed.
• The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been part of

The Equal Rights Amendment (continued)

• Does the fetus that a woman carries have the same basic right to life that all people have? Decades after Roe v. Wade, abortion remains an extremely polarizing issue in the United States.
• In the years before Roe v. Wade, federal law did not guarantee a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
• Differing state laws made obtaining an abortion difficult if not impossible for many women.
• In these states, an abortion could be a serious offense for the woman seeking the abortion as well as the doctor who performed it.
• Progressive states like California and New York had more lenient laws, but many women

Case Review: Roe v. Wade

LGBT Civil Rights Movement In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community became more vocal than in prior decades. In June 1969, customers of the Stonewall Inn in New York City fought back against a police raid. Violent protests erupted. In the wake of the riots, the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) was formed “to secure basic human rights, dignity, and freedom for all gay people.” Similar groups appeared over the next few decades. In the 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, the court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment covered the rights of same-sex couples to marry in all 50 states. The ruling did not end the issue of equal rights for the LGBT community, but it was a historic moment.

• This meant they argued, that the state law restricting abortion was preventing the exercise of her basic civil rights.
• The case of Roe v. Wade went to the Texas court, and eventually to the Supreme Court to settle this thorny issue.
• The Court reviewed historical laws and previous legal cases.

Case Review: Roe v. Wade (continued)

could not afford to travel to these states to obtain safe abortions.

• These women often desperately sought "Back-alley" abortions.
• In 1970, two lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee challenged abortion laws in Texas, where the state only allowed abortions when the mother's life was threatened by the pregnancy.
• On behalf of Norma McCorvey, a pregnant Texas resident, the two lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that the state's abortion law violated the rights of their client and other women.
• Their lawsuit stated that traveling out of state to obtain an abortion was impossible for their client.

was handed down.

• McCorvey later would come to regret her decision, She would cast her vote with the forces opposing abortion, illustrating the complexity of this controversial issue.
• In a historic and far-reaching decision, the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, June 24th 2022, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists (updated 6/27/22).

• On January 22, 1973, the Court decided in a 7-2 ruling that the states could not forbid abortion in the first trimester.
• Since mothers generally experience greater risk in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, states would be allowed to make their own restrictions on abortion during these time frames.
• The Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade was celebrated by feminists as a major step in guaranteeing individual civil rights.
• The "Pro-life" camp opposed the Supreme Court's decision and fought to overturn it.
• Ironically, due to the length of time it took for Roe v. Wade to make its way through the legal system, Norma McCorvey had already obtained an abortion long before the ruling

Case Review: Roe v. Wade (continued)