A liberal response to the possible Supreme Court ruling on Roe

     

     While the final ruling from the Supreme Court is still a month or two away the ruling will certainly be one that liberals will find appalling.  Justice Alito based much of his argument for overturning Roe on the fact that abortion is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. It may not have mentioned it because the Constitution was written by wealthy men who were not concerned with "women's issues." In reality, the first law restricting abortion was not written until 1821.  According to the American Progress organization colonial women could have abortions until the time of feeling movement in the fetus or after 14 weeks.  Unfortunately, some states what the situation to go back farther than colonial times.  

   Instead of the fight being directed at reinforcing the right to abortion in liberal states I want to propose a better way to respond.   Liberals should work to finally get the Equal Rights Amendment finally added to the Constitution.  The issue of whether enough states have ratified the amendment is controversial.   It all seems to boil down to the National Archivist to rule that the Amendment has met the threshold to have it go into effect.  The Office of Legal Counsel of the Trump Administration ruled that Congress didn't have the right to extend the 7-year time limit for the states to ratify the amendment.  This ruling has been supported by the current Biden Administration in court and that is blocking the Archivist from ruling the amendment is approved and is now part of the Constitution.  Attorney-General Garland could change this stance and let the courts could give the Archivist the right to rule on this matter and hopefully rule that the requirement had been met.  The Trump Administration didn't have any problem blocking the ruling so the Biden Administration shouldn't have any problem overruling that decision.  Elections have consequences.

    So how would this change the Roe ruling?  An argument could be made that the Equal Rights Amendment gives women the same right as men to control their health care decisions.  This is the route that Justice Ginsburg thought the right should have been based on.