As federal attacks on our autonomy escalate, it’s important to remember that the Pennsylvania Constitution has one of the strongest and most expansively interpreted Equal Rights Amendments in the country – and as of one year ago today, we have it back.
Here’s a brief history: Pennsylvania was the first state to amend our state constitution with an ERA in 1971. Believe it or not, the amendment passed with no opposition.
For about 14 years, the PA ERA significantly transformed Pennsylvania’s legal landscape. Lawsuit after lawsuit eliminated discriminatory laws affecting parentage, inheritances, employment, divorce—you name it.
All of this equalizing of the law to treat men and women the same in Pennsylvania came to a screeching halt in 1985 when the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania inappropriately restricted the PA ERA from applying to most situations in which it was intended to apply in a faulty ruling known as Fischer.
One year ago today – 39 years into Pennsylvanians being deprived of our full constitutional right to be free of sex-based discrimination – the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned Fischer in a decision in our ongoing litigation Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
Learn more about that ruling here.
The Justices also declared that with the state ERA restored, Pennsylvania’s statutory Medicaid exclusion of abortion coverage and, by extension, other abortion restrictions, are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the new legal standard.
While they restored the ERA, they sent the case – our challenge to Pennsylvania’s statutory Medicaid exclusion of abortion coverage – back to Commonwealth Court.
What’s next?
On Wednesday, February 5, WLP attorneys will be back in Commonwealth Court for the next phase of this landmark litigation.
This appearance represents the first Pennsylvania state court proceeding challenging an abortion restriction since the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania restored the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment and declared abortion restrictions “presumptively unconstitutional” under the new precedent.
I’ll send more details on Friday – and yes, arguments will be livestreamed. Our goal is to eliminate the biggest obstacle to equitable access to abortion in Pennsylvania.
We are continuing our strategic plan of building state legal power as both frontline defense and the path forward.
Of course, we could not do any of this work without your support – so thank you.
