With its landmark 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is fundamental to a woman’s personal liberty. 

20 years later, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, SCOTUS reaffirmed that right by stating that abortion is one of “the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, [a choice] central to personal dignity and autonomy,” and therefore exactly the kind of liberty protected by the Fourteenth amendment. 

For nearly fifty years, until Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022, the Supreme Court upheld and affirmed our constitutional right to abortion. Now, our liberty, dignity, and equality are under attack. 

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees against government infringement upon one’s privacy and liberty, a crucial aspect of abortion’s Constitutional basis. However, State restrictions upon reproductive autonomy are undeniably forms of sex discrimination, meaning they fall squarely under the umbrella of the Equal Rights Amendment. 

The power to make and act on decisions about one’s reproductive autonomy regardless of gender identity, race, economic status, and background are fundamental to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Ultimately, this is why we need a federal ERA that explicitly enshrines the right to abortion in the Constitution. This is why we’re mobilizing on June 24th, and you can help us take action. 

Article V of the Constitution lays out two requirements for the adoption of new constitutional amendments—approval by ⅔ of Congress (supermajority) and ratification by ¾ (38) of the states. The ERA surpassed both of these hurdles in 1972 and 2020, respectively, when Virginia became the 38th and final state needed for ratification. Article V mentions nothing about deadlines, such as the one arbitrarily imposed on the ERA’s ratification by the states, and is similarly silent on whether the Department of Justice can unilaterally prevent the publication of otherwise ratified amendments, as Trump’s DOJ did. If we take Article V by its plain text—as so many anti-abortion, anti-equality judges and politicians are keen on doing with other statutes—the ERA has been duly ratified and is awaiting publication. 

All the ERA is missing is the National Archivist’s signature, at the request of the President. What has forever been a purely ceremonial step is the only thing standing between us and constitutional gender equality. As Chief Executive, President Biden has the moral obligation and constitutional imperative to ensure the Archivist carries out her duty. The President has made many public remarks about his desire to codify Roe and restore federal protections for abortion, but is overlooking the single-most powerful tool in his arsenal, the ERA.

The ERA has fulfilled all requirements in the Constitution for publication. President Biden alone has the authority to publish the ERA. Leading constitutional scholars, alongside 121 members of Congress, have called on Biden to make the ERA the 28th Amendment.