President Joe Biden released a statement Friday declaring that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) “has become part of our Constitution.”
Biden asserted that as of 2020, 38 states have ratified the amendment and stated it should now be recognized as “the law of the land,” according to a White House press release. The amendment is meant to ensure equal rights for men and women in the U.S., but some interpretations of the text have implied it would erase gender distinctions and grant abortion protections.
“The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment,” the White House statement reads. “I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.”