New York State Equal Rights Amendment To Go Before Voters in 2024
Voters in the fall of 2024 will have a chance to enshrine civil rights protections for women, LGBTQ people, and abortion access into the state constitution after lawmakers on Tuesday pass the New York State Equal Rights Amendment for the second time.
If approved by voters, the state constitution will for the first time prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, disability, and sex, "including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, sexual orientation, gender expression.” The amendment's sponsors say those protections include reproductive rights, which would add New York to the minority of states that include access to abortion in their highest governing documents.
Though there is that final step to go, the victory for women's and LGBTQ rights advocates comes just after the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision and 100 years after Congress first introduced the Equal Right Amendment for women to the U.S. Constitution, which has never been ratified
New York would be part of a growing number of states to adopt an ERA in recent years. The amendment saw renewed interest last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe and made abortion a top issue in state and federal elections across the country. The court’s conservative majority opinions have also raised concerns that the body may be open to reconsidering other established rights, including marriage equality and obtaining contraception. Twenty-two states have adopted some form of ERA, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, double the number in 2019.
https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/11796-state-legislature-passes-new-york-equal-rights-amendment-voters-2024
