NOW Wants an ERA to Protect Women's Reproductive Rights, Privacy and Bodily Integrity

Statement of NOW Executive Vice President Kim Gandy

March 22, 2001

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The National Organization for Women has devoted much of its 35-year history to advancing
a constitutional amendment to assure women's equality. More than 200 years experience has
clearly demonstrated that the constitutional guarantee of equal protection cannot be relied on to
stop discrimination against women in employment, education, insurance, health care, Social
Security and pensions, the military, the justice system and many other areas.

Virtually all of the gains women have made are now threatened. Especially imperiled are women's
reproductive rights. Hundreds of bills have been passed by Congress and the states that limit
women's access to vital reproductive health care services. The Constitution has not served to
prevent a campaign of violence that has intimidated health care providers and murdered doctors.
A single new anti-abortion rights Supreme Court justice could destroy a woman's right to make
her own reproductive decisions.

Today it is more urgent than ever that we adopt an equal rights amendment to the Constitution,
not only to assure equal treatment in all spheres, but to ensure privacy and bodily integrity and to
end sex discrimination based on women's reproductive abilities. Debate and hearings must clarify
that the Equal Rights Amendment will be a permanent guarantee of this basic human right for
women. The ERA with a legislative history that clearly guarantees a woman's right to privacy and
bodily integrity would do much to diminish the hateful harassment, demeaning and disrespectful
political debate and life-threatening acts of terrorism that we have endured now for decades.

This kind of ERA will make pregnancy discrimination, in all its offensive forms, unconstitutional.
These include the punitive treatment of maternity leave, suppression of contraceptive information,
limitations on access to contraception, denial or surcharging of pregnancy coverage on private
medical and disability insurance, and many others.

NOW will take a strong stand against the denial of women's reproductive rights with our
Emergency Campaign for Women's Lives, beginning April 22 in Washington, D.C.  Thousands of
activists will gather at the nation's Capitol to demand that the Senate reject another right-wing
Supreme Court appointment. We will also renew our call to pass a Constitutional equality
amendment that will guarantee women's fundamental right to bodily integrity and reproductive
autonomy.