Ben Bacote teaches at Waterville Valley Academy.
In the days since the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade, supporters from both sides of the issue have asked, “what comes next?”
Rather than putting to rest issues of reproductive rights, access to abortions, the protection of the fetus, bodily autonomy and constitutionally protected privacy in the home, this Supreme Court has only ensured lawyers, politicians and legislators across the country some serious headaches, the makers of pain relief a big upcoming financial quarter, and political lobbyists long hours moving forward.
The fight to decide what gets legislated next, how it is legislated, and who gets in the room to legislate future decisions about what is legally optioned for a person’s body is now beginning to take shape with the contestants identifying themselves and eagerly lining up to take sides. In all transparency, I have chosen the side that allows for abortion.
However, New Hampshire and the rest of America need not worry about having to choose sides in this unfolding dilemma and debate; or, glance from the sidelines to watch this battle engulf household after household, and neighborhood after neighborhood, county by county and state by state up, and, through this November’s elections.
We don’t have to watch newsreels, check our social feeds, check on our neighbors, or talk civilly with those we differ from or any of these things communities are strengthened by doing because a simple fix is already available waiting in the wings of the United States Senate. And, for almost 100 years this bill has existed: written, legislated, hotly debated, just waiting to be enacted.
The Equal Rights Amendment, or the 28th Amendment, was proposed in 1923 and passed in 1972. It states that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” If ratified, laws that treat bodies unfairly “on account of sex” would be recognized as unconstitutional.
The 28th Amendment was seen as essential 100 years ago because voting rights then, and now, have never been enough to protect civil liberties for classes of people not explicitly written into the Constitution of the U.S. In only four years after the 19th Amendment passed women grew to realize that voting rights did not equate to equal treatment. Jim Crow laws, banking and common business practices toward women of that time are examples of limits to the Constitution’s protections. Black women wouldn’t be protected to vote across America until 1968. It took roughly half a century of voting and civic engagement before most women in the U.S. accepted all races of women as deserving the right to vote.
It has been roughly half a century since the right to privacy was thought of as a constitutionally protected right as a result of Roe v Wade (1973). This recent reversal of Roe v Wade, and its concurring opinion, makes other constitutionally protected rights seem also in doubt, as this court has suggested.
Upheld by the “right to privacy” are the decisions that allowed married couples access to contraceptives (Griswold v Connecticut, 1968) and even certain sex acts to be deemed protected from law enforcement (Lawrence v Texas, 2003). And yet, dear reader, even if you fear or fight for these, you needn’t be alarmed; there exists the 28th Amendment.
The passage of the 28th Amendment, in 1972, came with a time limit for ratification that has kept it off the books. This time limit, perhaps, a compromise to ensure enough votes, keeps the 28th Amendment from being added to the Constitution despite it having received the total number of two-thirds of states (38) necessary for it to be added that occurred when Virginia ratified it in 2020. Virginia has since tried to backtrack that vote (CNN, 2/19/22).
If bodily autonomy is left solely to politicians, bodily autonomy may well take another 50 years before all Americans are deemed legally worthy of the right to privacy while making decisions in the home and elsewhere. Or, we could demand our Senators take up S.R. 1, vote and protect the classes of people intentionally left out of the writing of the U.S. Constitution more than 250 years ago, and, when it passes, we could celebrate that.
3-Minute Civics is a column that explores and examines concepts to help readers understand and participate in state and national political conversation. It runs every other week in the Sunday Forum. The authors of this column are not members of the Monitor’s staff.