The Equal Rights Amendment has been repeatedly declared dead by Congress and the Courts. Despite the facts, President Biden is attempting to wish the failed amendment back to life just days before leaving office. In a bizarre statement today, outgoing President Joe Biden made the following comments:
In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe . . . The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.
Eagle Forum President Kris Ullman said, “Like the movie ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ President Biden and his feminist friends are attempting to pass off the deceased amendment as still breathing. To be clear, this is factually untrue. First, the Courts made clear in 1982 and again in 2021 that the amendment is dead. The Senate has repeatedly failed in attempts to revive the ERA by stripping out the time limit decades after its defeat. In addition, under our Constitution, the President has no Constitutional authority to declare the ERA ratified.”
Since the defeat of Harris for President, feminists have urged Biden to order the Archivist of the United States to publish the ERA and declare it part of the Constitution. Today, he offered them lip service by releasing a statement of his personal beliefs that have no impact and are divorced from reality. Thankfully, Dr. Colleen J. Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, clarified last month in a press release that the deadline of the ERA is “valid and enforceable” and removing the deadline is incumbent on Congress or federal courts. The Archivist made clear that “the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that ERA is legally dead. President Biden’s ‘belief’ is untethered from reality. It’s symbolism over substance and his statement has no legal force,” said Anne Schlafly Carpenter, chairman of Eagle Forum and daughter of Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly.
Eagle Forum was established to fight the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Phyllis Schlafly was the first to see how the ERA would undermine the rights of American women and organized an army of women to stop its approval and even repeal its passage in statehouses from coast to coast.
“For years, ERA proponents stated that ERA had nothing to do with abortion. Now they finally agree with the ERA opponents that the true purpose of ratifying ERA is to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution. When ERA was debated in the 1970s, everyone knew how to define “sex”. Today, “sex” has a myriad of definitions, including transgender issues. ERA would harm the rights of women,” Schlafly Carpenter concluded.
