| Title: |
The Equal Rights Amendment: The 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution |
| Authors: |
Butler, Twiss; Butler, Patrick |
| Source: |
Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence |
| Publisher Information: |
DigitalCommons@URI |
| Publication Year: |
2025 |
| Collection: |
University of Rhode Island: DigitalCommons@URI |
| Subject Terms: |
United States; Equal Rights Amendment; ERA; ERA ramifications; 28th Amendment; sex discrimination; discrimination against women; pregnancy discrimination; abortion; Roe v. Wade; Geduldig v. Aiello; Dobbs v. Jackson; legal sex change; Civil Rights and Discrimination; Constitutional Law; Fourteenth Amendment; Law; Law and Gender; Law and Society; Policy History; Theory; and Methods; Public Affairs; Public Policy and Public Administration |
| Description: |
This article reviews how Supreme Court interpretations of the 14th Amendment have allowed laws to discriminate against women. It aims to show that the Equal Rights Amendment, ratified as the 28th Amendment in 2020, offers a constitutional basis for eliminating all forms of legal sex discrimination against women. These forms include discrimination based on pregnancy and abortion, commodifying women’s bodies, and allowing men to intrude into women’s protected spaces. The review starts with the denial of protection for women by America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776, denounces the Supreme Court’s precedent-setting 1974 Geduldig decision, which ruled—quite illogically—that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is not sex discrimination, and ends with the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision which overturns the constitutional protection under the 14th Amendment for the circumscribed abortion rights women have had since the Court’s Roe decision in 1973. The review also notes that without the constitutional backing of the Equal Rights 28th Amendment, President Trump’s Executive Order on his Inauguration Day in January 2025 prohibiting men from changing their legal sex can be repealed instantly by any successor president. The authors hope this review will help to accelerate the use of the 28th Amendment on behalf of women and girls. |
| Document Type: |
text |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
unknown |
| Relation: |
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/vol10/iss3/4; https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/dignity/article/1461/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf |
| DOI: |
10.23860/dignity.2025.10.03.04 |
| Availability: |
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity/vol10/iss3/4; https://doi.org/10.23860/dignity.2025.10.03.04; https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/dignity/article/1461/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf |
| Rights: |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.C1F37110 |
| Database: |
BASE |