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NOW Celebrates ERA Ratification Day in Virginia

Statement by NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

RICHMOND, VA — Today’s formal ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Virginia is a cause for celebration.  This day has been a long, long time coming, and credit for this historic victory is due to the new leadership of the Virginia legislature—and the groundswell of feminist activists and voters who put them there. 

After successfully passing the state House and Senate on Jan. 15th, today’s crossover vote makes Virginia officially the 38th state needed to ratify the ERA—passing the three-fourths of the states threshold the U.S. Constitution requires for final adoption of an amendment.  However, obstacles to certification remain, including an artificial timeline imposed in the preamble to the ERA in 1972. Now Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t let the Senate vote on a bill to remove that timeline, S.J.Res.6, even though it has two Republican co-sponsors, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. 

While the timeline removal bill is not necessary—legal analysts have asserted that Article V of the Constitution does not permit the imposition of deadlines on the ratification process—it would provide extra insurance as the ERA certification process goes forward. NOW calls on Congress to act on S.J.Res.6 and correct the Constitution’s most glaring omission.  It is simply never too late for equality.  

A democracy that fails to include women in its founding document is a failed democracy.  But today, Virginia women have shown how to rise up and put equality, reproductive rights and women’s justice at the front of the political agenda. 

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary , press@now.org , 202-570-4745

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Trump Uses Religion to Excuse Discrimination

Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump Administration is shredding every Obama-era equal rights protection it can find—but they’re especially fierce when it comes to promoting evangelical extremism. Our democracy depends on a secular government that doesn’t elevate any single religion, maintains the separation between church and state and protects our freedom from religious-based oppression and discrimination. 

New rules advanced by nine federal agencies rescind the Obama executive order that required faith-based providers to notify beneficiaries of their religious nature and their right to get the same services elsewhere.  This move would open the door to even more federal largesse to Christian groups hand-picked by Mike Pence and Donald Trump. 

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case that a private, religiously oriented company could obtain a religious exemption from the contraceptive mandate, the Trump Administration now wants to go even farther—allowing even publicly held companies to suddenly “get religion” as an excuse to deny women health care. 

Religion has been routinely used to justify and enforce some of society’s most hurtful and egregious failures, from slavery in the United States, segregation in the Deep South, treating women as if they are property owned by men, and ongoing discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people today. 

NOW opposes these latest attempts to further exclude, subjugate, and discriminate against women on the basis of faith to what are essentially faithless beliefs.

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745

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On Roe Day We Must Vow to Protect Abortion Care

Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

Washington, D.C. — On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court afforded Constitutional protection to women’s right to abortion care. Forty-seven years later, Roe v. Wade is still a critical victory for reproductive freedom, but it is one that is being chipped away piece by piece. 

In 2019 alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute, lawmakers across the United States have enacted 58 new restrictions on access to abortion care and family planning. By stacking the Supreme Court and lower courts with anti-abortion extremist judges, President Donald Trump and is doing everything he can to overturn or severely limit Roe. This would come at the grave cost of the health, safety and autonomy of women across this nation.  

In 1967, NOW was the first national organization to publicly endorse the legalization of abortion and we have been fighting for women’s right to choose ever since. We have hundreds of thousands of members and supporters across the country who are committed to keeping abortion safe, legal and accessible.  

A recent study showed that five years after an abortion, 99 percent of women surveyed felt they have made the right decision and 84 percent of women expressed positive or no emotion with regard to their abortion after five years.  Yet politicians and religious extremists are pushing for needless regulations that harm abortion care clinics and promote horrific lies about fetal pain and infanticide that have no basis in medical reality. These vicious actions encourage violence against abortion providers and threaten the fundamental right of women to control their own bodies and lives.  

For more than 50 years NOW has been at the forefront of protecting women’s reproductive freedom and we are just getting started. This Friday we will join our fellow activists in counter-protesting the so-called “Right to Life” protest at the Supreme Court. We call on our grassroots activists across the country to join similar efforts. By taking to the streets, and to the voting booths, we will protect Roe for generations of women to come.  

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745

Florida NOW

Florida NOW’s purpose is to take action through intersectional grassroots activism to promote feminist ideals, lead societal change, eliminate discrimination, and achieve and protect the equal rights of all women and girls.

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