NowThis has released ‘The History of Abortion,’ a video that features Alyssa Milano educating Americans about the assault on abortion rights over the past few hundred years.
Milano, a longtime reproductive rights activist and a board member of the ERA Coalition, argues that new tactics are necessary to defend reproductive freedom. The Equal Rights Amendment, which has already been successfully been ratified in the required 38 states, should finally be added as an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing equal bodily autonomy.
As Milano makes clear, “Roe v. Wade was groundbreaking. But the only thing that can truly ensure full gender equality–including control of our bodies–is the Equal Rights Amendment, which has already surpassed the votes needed in the states to be ratified."
The film reveals the role played by the all-male American Medical Association, who asserted their control over women’s health by driving midwives out of business and making abortion illegal in the U.S.
Milano ends with a call to publish the ERA.
“The recent leak proved that activist judges on the Supreme Court are ready and more than willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. President Biden and Congress have an obligation to fix the Constitution and stop women’s bodies from being used as a political football. Publish the ERA and ensure that our right to bodily autonomy is forever codified in the United States constitution.”
The ERA was never added to the Constitution because Congress set a deadline. It said 38 states had to ratify the proposed amendment by 1979. (The deadline was extended to 1982.) So when in 2020 Virginia became the final state needed to ratify the ERA, it was almost 40 years too late.
But last year, the House passed a joint resolution to remove the deadline, which President Joe Biden says he supports. So with stronger control of the Senate, the ERA may finally become the law of the land.
