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Letter: It is time to pass the Equal Rights Amendment

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Miranda Gilvarry holds her daughter Be a, 1, as they join the rally on Women’s Equality Day at the Capitol on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, to encourage Utah to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

I was raised by parents that treated my sister and me as equals to our older brother, so it was a shock to me when I joined the workforce and discovered that things were indeed not equal.

Pay was incredibly unequal for women in comparison to our male coworkers. That is when I joined the Equal Rights Amendment movement, 60 years ago!

Here we are, all these years later, and we still do not have the ERA codified as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I have written to my congressman and senators to urge their support for the ERA, and I was told that women do not need this constitutional protection, as our rights are already protected.

I have one question for all of them: If this is true, why did the Supreme Court reverse Roe vs. Wade? This has been considered “settled law” for 50 years.

If women’s rights can be taken away at the whim of a conservative court, what is next? Women need to be recognized as equals in the U.S. Constitution.

After more than 100 years of fighting for equal rights, it is time to pass the ERA!

Judy Calder, West Jordan

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