SPRINGFIELD – Since the 1970s, Republican women in Illinois have strongly resisted all radical feminists' efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution with an Equal Rights Amendment.
Until Wednesday – when State Senator Karen McConnaughay broke ranks with the party tradition and joined Democrat feminists in a press conference to announce the ERA had "bipartisan" backing.
“The intention of the Illinois Senate Women’s Caucus is to advance legislation that supports, empowers and protects women of all aspects of life, and that’s exactly what we are doing today,” said McConnaughay, a St. Charles Republican and co-chairwoman of the caucus.
SJRCA 4, the Equal Rights Amendment proposes to ratify the ERA to the U.S. Constitution.
“Today, we are here together, Republican and Democratic women, to demonstrate our support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which ensures equality for all women,” McConnaughay said. “This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s an issue that affects every single woman in this country. By coming together, we have a chance to make an impact at a national level for women all across the nation.”
McConnaughay, who has in the past said she was pro-life, apparently doesn't hold that position anymore. The ERA will guarantee abortion as a choice for women if it the ERA were ever to become part of the U.S. Constitution. State ERAs have already been used as the basis for abortion right state laws.
STOP ERA leader Elise Bouc shared three ways the ERA would negatively affect women:
1. The ERA will harm our unborn children by overturning all restrictions on abortions and mandating taxpayer funding for elective medicaid abortions.
2. The ERA will harm women by stripping away all laws, practices and policies that benefit them. It will force women to be treated like men, even when it makes logical sense to make distinctions based on biological differences.
3. The ERA harms our society because the dishonest efforts being used to resurrect the legally dead ERA twist and distort our legal process for passing laws and thus will greatly weaken citizens' willingness to be governed by an unlawful government.
State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) is the chief Senate sponsor of the ERA.
“I am proud to sponsor the ERA and for it to gain bipartisan support from female senators,” she said. “Passing the ERA will strengthen the fight for so many women’s issues. It all starts with equality of rights, regardless of sex, being cemented into the Constitution.”
The late national family activist and devoted GOP delegate Phyllis Schlafly fought the ERA from its beginning in the early 70s.
