The Equal Rights Amendment states that no person’s rights should be denied on the basis of sex, but it hasn’t been ratified by enough states to actually make it into the Constitution. One more state is needed, and some Republicans and Democrats want that to be Georgia. But the effort could be derailed by a far-right argument that the amendment could increase abortions.
Democratic state Sen. Nan Orrock is one of the leaders of the renewed battle. She said it’s about “an old, age-old story of women having to fight to gain their rights and break through the glass ceiling.”
It’s the latest moment in the long fight with roots in the suffrage movement, in her view. And this battle is very similar to the last time there was a big push to ratify the amendment in the 1970s, Orrock said. “Except, that I think that the younger generations look at it as sheer foolishness that anybody would oppose stating that equality of the sexes should be part of the Constitution.”
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