In light of current attacks on a woman’s right to choose, it’s time to revisit the Equal Rights Amendment;  which, contrary to common assumptions, was not ratified and adopted by all of the states more than thirty years ago.  Had we gotten the job done right in the 1970’s and ’80’s, women would not now be facing the sweeping assaults on reproductive health that have scourged Alabama, Missouri, Georgia, and Louisiana…with other states waiting in the wings to do their worst. 

It is now necessary to replace and update it with language to protect people of all gender variations.

As the largest reliable voting block, it is also time for women to band together, applying their own “litmus test” to anyone, male or female, who seeks to represent them in government.

Here is a list of positions, vis-a-vis women’s rights, that I am looking for in a candidate:

. In all reproductive matters, a woman has full ownership of her own body and therefore the inalienable right to choose.   The relegation of what is a highly individual and painful ethical and moral decision to a crass engine of shifting political self-interest is an outrage against humanity. 

. She has the right to equal pay for equal labor, whether mental or physical.

. She has the right to equal opportunity.

. She has the right to say ‘no’ to anyone, even an insistent spouse.  If her refusal is not respected, the state has a duty to believe her unless there is persuasive evidence to the contrary.  

Violations of this right are by nature so intimate and humiliating for the victim, that it may be impossible to prove “beyond a doubt” that the violation has occurred.  For this reason, I believe a different standard of proof should apply for such crimes; but the penalty for deliberately misrepresenting an assault claim should be equally severe for the claimant as it would be for an assailant, since  such a misrepresentation is as injurious to victims as a whole as would be an actual assault.

. No law governing the behavior of women exclusively should be enforceable unless it has been formally ratified by a body comprised of at least 50% female members.

Despite the fact that we represent more than half the population, woman are so severely underrepresented in elected and appointed government positions that we are in effect a defacto minority group.

Nothing has more vividly illustrated this injustice than the passage of Alabama’s draconian anti-choice law without the vote of a single female legislator.

We can no longer hold up the United States as a beacon of democracy and social justice when we surrender women’s reproductive rights to what amounts to a “Christian” Taliban.