From the moment then-candidate Donald Trump said that women would deserve “some form of punishment” if abortion were to become illegal, we have been preparing for dire threats to the constitutional right to abortion.
On Wednesday, Justice Anthony Kennedy—the deciding vote on the Supreme Court when it came to protecting the core of the constitutional right to abortion—announced his retirement, creating a vacant seat that President Trump has promised to fill with an anti-abortion justice who will overturnRoe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established the right to abortion.
Because he has attacked access to reproductive health care at every opportunity, we believe he’ll make good on that threat.
The right of women to make their own decisions about their bodies and their futures will be determined by who fills Justice Kennedy’s seat. So now the balance of the most powerful court is a tug of war between Trump and the 70 percent of Americans who support safe legal abortion.
Of course, this isn’t the first time we have had to fight to save our access to reproductive health.
When Trump promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and block patients from coming to Planned Parenthood, people from across the country flooded Twitter, the U.S. Capitol, town halls, and congressional inboxes. And we stopped him.
Any justice Trump nominates must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, so Planned Parenthood and our 11 million supporters will do everything we can to make sure that the Senate only confirms justices who explicitly state they will uphold Roe v. Wade and women’s rights to safe, legal abortion.
Because what happens on the Supreme Court could alter the course of women’s lives for generations.
The stakes are high. At least 20 states would be at high risk of banning abortion outright if Roe is overturned, either because of laws already in place or because they have legislatures and governors so hostile to women’s health that they will jump at the chance to take away our rights. Four of those states already have laws in place that would ban abortion as soon as the court allows.
One of them is my home state of Louisiana, where in 1983, as a freshman at LSU, I became pregnant. I didn’t want to be. Like so many people who find themselves in the same predicament, I was near broke and only beginning to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew, without a doubt, that I was not ready to be a mother. I borrowed money and had an abortion at the health center in town.
If it had been illegal in Louisiana, I’m certain I would have found a way to get an abortion in another state. Many women don’t have that option. They have children to feed, bills to pay and jobs that don’t give paid time off. Others don’t have insurance or a car or the savings to pay for their travel and care. Even now, when Roe is the law of the land, too many women must contend with extreme barriers to care, because Louisiana state politicians have spent years chipping away at the constitutional right to abortion and made it as difficult and as burdensome as possible.
Today, I am the proud mother of triplet teenage daughters, daughters I am sure I would not have without that abortion in 1983. When I feel worn out by the news and the work ahead, I think of them. And I think of the 1 in 5 women who come to Planned Parenthood, and how we have changed their lives by helping them to own their own bodies through access to birth control, education, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and abortion.
So much has changed since 1973. Half of American families today have a female breadwinner. We work at every level in every industry. We are CEOs and computer scientists and increasingly members of Congress. Women are more than half of college students. More women are running for office this year than ever before.
When my daughters were growing up, I told them they could be anything they wanted to be. And I believed that. I still believe it.
But I also know, from decades of fighting for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and racial justice, that the world doesn’t become more fair and just on its own.
Those in power don’t simply give us our rights. We have to demand them, and protect them. And sometimes, fight to get them back.
Dawn Laguens is the Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Presidents come and go, but Supreme Court justices last a lifetime—and their rulings can affect women for generations to come.
The privilege of nominating a high court judge now falls to President Donald Trump for the second time with the coming retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Trump has vowed to put conservative judges on the bench, and he kept that promise when he chose Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia last year. In choosing Kennedy’s replacement, Trump could shift the court further to the right, changing the landscape on issues affecting American women—including abortion rights—and could fire up both sides of the aisle in an already tumultuous election year.
Here’s a look at what’s ahead for the court—and the the country.
What’s at stake?
Trump’s next nominee may matter even more than his last. Replacing Scalia with Gorsuch didn’t change the court’s partisan balance; it was a case of one conservative justice succeeding another.
That’s about to change, according to Melissa Murray, the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Over the last 20 years, Justice Kennedy emerged as the sort of prototypical swing justice on the court, the person whose vote was pivotal in securing and upholding such policies as affirmative action,” Murray, who clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor before her SCOTUS appointment, told Glamour. “He often was on the progressive side [of issues], though not all. And he of course was famously the architect [of] basically the whole process of getting to same-sex marriage… His retirement is actually a huge void, and it sort of disrupts the equilibrium of the court.”
Murray said a rightward SCOTUS lurch could deeply influence women’s lives on issues ranging from abortion rights to voting protections to unionized labor.
What will happen with abortion law if a hard-right conservative gets the seat?
A huge amount of the attention surrounding Trump’s Supreme Court pick centers on how it might affect abortion—and more specifically the landmark 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, which effectively made abortion legal in the U.S. The departing Kennedy was the swing vote, siding with the liberals, in later cases seen as a direct threat to Roe.
A number of states already have their own legal restrictions on the termination of pregnancies. Abortion-rights proponents fear that cases now making their way through the lower courts could ultimately lead to the overturning of Roe and the end of legal abortions in America—something deeply conservative Vice President Mike Pence has openly said will happen this lifetime.
Pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates are mobilizing their bases ahead of Trump’s pick.
“The idea of Trump having his choice to fill another vacancy is terrifying for not only abortion rights, but for our ability to live free from discrimination in this country,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a press release issued in response to Kennedy’s retirement announcement. The group said its “11 million supporters call on the Senate to reject any nominee who would strip people’s individual rights and freedoms.”
“The most important commitment that President Trump has made to the pro-life movement has been his promise to nominate only pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, a commitment he honored by swiftly nominating Judge Neil Gorsuch,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, in a press release issued by the group. “President Trump now has another crucial opportunity to restore respect for life and the Constitution. We trust him to follow through on his promise.”
So what does it mean if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
If the case is actually overturned, the landscape of where and what women can choose to do with their own bodies could change drastically.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, only eight states currently have legislation protecting the right to an abortion. Though it would be safe to assume that blue states without such laws would work to enact them quickly.
Red states and rural areas would likely see access to legal abortions disappear locally, meaning there would be an added financial burden in trying to travel to a state where they are still legal. This would disproportionately affect lower income women. CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin predicted that abortion would be illegal in 20 states within 18 months.
What does this mean for Trump’s base?
As Amy L. Howe noted in a piece for SCOTUS blog, “Anti-abortion voters had played a key role in [Ronald] Reagan’s election, and Kennedy initially provided both the president who appointed him and those voters with reason to be optimistic.”
Trump’s unfavorable ratings remain higher than his approvals in the runup to a midterm election that could make or break his party’s control of Congress.
“Without a doubt, the court appointment is a huge boost for Trump and Republicans, who were facing serious headwinds going into midterms. They still are—SCOTUS will drive significant [Democratic] and female turnout,” CNN commentator S.E. Cupp told Glamour.
At the same time, warned the conservative Cupp, “Don’t underestimate how much it will also motivate conservatives and evangelicals. If they were contemplating staying home, they now have reason to get out and vote. SCOTUS is the only—and I mean only—thing around which the fractured right can rally.”
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a fundamental cause for many second-wave feminists in the seventies and eightiess, is now back in the conversation in a very real way. And it just might pass this time, especially if a new group of activists have anything to say about it.
Last month the state of Illinois became the thirty-seventh state to ratify the ERA, an amendment to the United States Constitution meant to protect Americans from discrimination based on their sex. That means we’re only one state away from ratification.
There’s a decent chance that this comes as news to you, even if you have (sort of) followed the long and complicated history of the amendment. But there exists a steadfast group of women, both inside the government and beyond, that have been working for its ratification for years, including Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D–N.Y.).
“Women are half the population and yet the only right we are guaranteed in the Constitution is the right to vote. By finally ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment we will change that and usher in a new chapter in this nation where equal will truly mean equal for everyone,” Maloney tells Glamour. “The ERA is the legal bedrock from which we can fight for and win equal pay for equal work, end sexual harassment and assault, and end gender discrimination. We have an unprecedented opportunity to harness the energy of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements, of the race to the polls and record number of women running for office, to create lasting change for generations to come. We must seize it.”
And then there are women like actress and activist Alyssa Milano who have been supporters of the ERA for years, but are more recently taking concrete action. Last week Maloney held a shadow hearing about the ERA, where Milano was one of her witnesses.
“I think the craziest thing is that most people think that women are protected and covered under the law of our Constitution,” Milano told Glamour. “And when I tell them that they are not guaranteed equal justice under the Constitution, women are normally shocked.”
While she grew up in a politically active family and was familiar with the ERA, “It wasn’t until the Me Too movement took off that it felt like now is the right time to potentially bring this back up,” she says.
Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about the ERA and what’s next for the amendment.
What exactly does the amendment say?
The amendment itself is pretty straightforward and broken down into three parts.
Section 1 Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3 This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
When was the ERA first written?
The Equal Rights Amendment dates all the way back to the suffragette movement and Alice Paul, then head of the National Women’s Party. She drafted the first version and it was introduced to Congress in 1923.
It’s been around since 1923 and it’s still not an amendment?
That’s correct. From 1923 to 1970, it was introduced into every session of Congress but often lingered in committee, awaiting a full hearing. It was narrowly defeated in the senate in 1946.
Then, in 1967, the new National Organization for Women (NOW) took up the cause. In 1972 Congress passed the ERA by the necessary two thirds majority, and the amendment went to the states for ratification with a seven-year window, later extended to June 30, 1982.
However, the amendment fell short by three states and failed to be ratified by the deadline.
PHOTO: Bettmann/Getty Images
An ERA march in Washington, D.C., in July 1978
It was officially reintroduced into Congress in 1982.
Wait, remind me, how does ratification work again?
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Basically, there are two ways to propose an amendment—either by the Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a convention of states called for by two thirds of the state legislatures. Then it moves to the ratification step to become part of the actual Constitution. This happens when the legislatures of three fourths of the states (or 38 out of 50) vote to ratify or state-ratifying conventions in three fourths of the states.
That’s what makes Illinois’ recent vote to ratify significant. They were number 37.
Who are some notable supporters?
From Alice Paul and her fellow suffragettes to Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm, the list can read like a who’s who of feminism.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said, “If I could choose an amendment to add to the Constitution, it would be the Equal Rights Amendment.”
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The movement also had the support of the unions by way of the AFL-CIO (who voted to support in 1973), the Democratic party, and myriad women’s organizations.
It seems like a good thing for women. What’s the opposition all about?
The most prominent figure in the opposition of the ERA was conservative activist and antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly (founder of the Republican National Coalition for Life and Stop ERA), who passed away in 2016 at age 92. Her obituary in The Washington Post notes that she is credited with almost single-handedly stopping the amendment’s ratification through grassroots organizing.
Schlafly believed that the ERA was antifamily and anti-American.
“Since the women are the ones who bear the babies and there’s nothing we can do about that, our laws and customs then make it the financial obligation of the husband to provide the support,” she said in 1973. “It is his obligation and his sole obligation. And this is exactly and precisely what we will lose if the Equal Rights Amendment is passed.”
PHOTO: Bettmann/Getty Images
Stop ERA leader Phyllis Schlafly
“ERA means abortion funding, means homosexual privileges, means whatever else,” she argued.
Another popular argument against the ERA was that it was simply unnecessary because the Fourteenth Amendment already held that no state could “deny to any person within its jurisdiction”—including women, presumably—“the equal protection of the laws.”
Which states have not ratified the ERA?
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
Why is it back in the conversation now?
There has always been behind-the-scenes action on the amendment, and as previously mentioned, it gets reintroduced in Congress almost every year. But it has definitely not been prominent in the news for quite some time. It would not be a stretch to believe the the conversation around the ERA has heated up in the wake of the cultural moments like the election of Donald Trump, the Women’s March, and the #MeToo movement.
Jen Deaderick, who is writing a history of the ERA and runs the Equal Rights Amendment Facebook page, talked to Slate in April about the resurgence. “It still did seem like everyone was just spinning their wheels for a while. But then the Women’s March happened last year, and in its wake Nevada suddenly ratified the ERA,” she says. “So we went from needing three more states to ratify to only needing two.” (In March 2017 Nevada became the first state in four decades ratify the ERA.)
So much has changed since the ERA was first conceived. Do we still need it?
Simply put, yes. There is much progress that has happened both culturally and legally, but without a constitutional amendment, those changes are not permanent.
“In the seventies, the ERA was part of the second-wave agenda. Women’s advocacy groups like NOW pushed through all sorts of laws and won lots of court cases that helped even the playing field for women,” explains Deaderick. “There’s also been a tremendous cultural change, so it can be hard to imagine going backward. But the thing about laws and judicial rulings is that they can be repealed and overturned. Enshrining equality for the sexes in the Constitution wouldn’t immediately solve every issue, and might not even make all that much difference initially in our laws and courts, but it would provide an important bulwark against backward movement. We can’t count on Ruth Bader Ginsburg living forever.”
“The #MeToo movement has underscored the importance of strong legal protections for women’s rights, and our resolve to secure these Constitutional guarantees is unwavering,” National Organization for Women President Toni Van Pelt said in a statement to NPR.
What happens if the thirty-eighth state votes to ratify?
There would be arguments about the original 1982 deadline, though there seems to be a possibility (per the Congressional Research Service) that that could simply be extended. Or Congress may need to pass the amendment anew, meaning each state would need to ratify again.
But whatever the case, we’re one state away from finding out. So basically, buckle up!
As women all over the world marched in support of women’s equality and intersectional issues on Saturday, famed attorney Gloria Allred spoke in Utah to remind us of something pretty harrowing: that women’s rights and equality aren’t guaranteed under the Constitution. Her speech laid out the fact that the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be ratified; if it were, it would officially eliminate legal distinctions between men and women in terms of employment, divorce, and property—and give equal rights to all citizens in the Constitution regardless of sex.
Allred has made her career by representing women in high-profile sexual harassment cases, including dozens of women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct as well as Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, who claims that Donald Trump defamed her after she publicly accused him of sexual assault. Her speech at the Respect Rally at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, was a glimpse at just how powerful and compelling she must be on the stand—and a call to action for those watching in the crowd and at home.
“This entire year has been the winter of our discontent,” she said. “But it is also the year of our awakening to the lack of respect and the denial of our rights. This marks the end of fear being used as a tool to silence women.”
As Allred listed the rights for which women have been marching, she led the crowd in a chant: “Resist, insist, persist, elect.”
PHOTO: Mat Hayward
She then called for Utah to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which was proposed by suffragist leader Alice Paul in 1923 after women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920. In 1972, the ERA was passed by Congress and 35 states ratified it by 1982. Last year, Nevada became the 36th state. However, 38 states are required to introduce the amendment into the Constitution.
“And we demand the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment: The equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” Allred demanded, quoting the amendment’s text.
The crowd cheered and chanted when Allred asked that Utah become the 37th state to ratify the ERA.
“Let me tell you no one has ever given women their rights,” she said. “We have been fighting for almost 95 years just to put women in the Constitution to protect the rights of our daughters and we are going to have it.”
Watch her speech here:
(P.S. If you want more Allred—and who doesn’t?—a Netflix documentary about her career as a feminist lawyer, Seeing Allred, premiers February 9.)
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