A federal court case recently affirmed that the pro-abortion Equal Rights Amendment is not a part of the Constitution, despite last-second claims by President Joe Biden.

The acknowledgement came when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit from a man who objected to being required to register with the Selective Service, also known as “the draft.”

Since only men are required to register, the plaintiff argued this violated the ERA, which he suggested was the “Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.” The proposed amendment states: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

The judges ruled the claim was “meritless.” 

The ruling is significant in that it undermines President Joe Biden’s assertion on January 17, 2025, just days before he was set to leave office, that the ERA “has become part of our Constitution.”

“In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex,” President Biden stated in a news release.

The surprise announcement followed years of advocacy by pro-abortion groups to argue the time limits set by Congress to pass the ERA were not valid, and states who had withdrawn their support could not do so. 

Pro-abortion groups have explicitly argued for the ERA to protect a “right” to abortion. Just one example will suffice to establish their motives.

In March 2019 NARAL told its supporters: “In order to protect our reproductive freedom today it’s essential we pass the newly re-introduced bill to ratify the ERA.”

“With its ratification, the ERA would reinforce the constitutional right to abortion by clarifying that the sexes have equal rights, which would require judges to strike down anti-abortion laws because they violate both the constitutional right to privacy and sexual equality,” the group wrote.

The judge’s ruling adds to other determinations that the amendment was never ratified and supporters must start over from state zero.

In January 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to pass the ERA, which means it reached the three-fifths majority. However, five states had rescinded their own resolutions and two deadlines set by Congress had already passed.

Yet a week prior, the Office of Legal Counsel had already confirmed the Archivist of the United States should not consider the amendment ratified, as the deadline had passed. The same office in 2022, when Biden was in the White House, affirmed the decision. 

This led to a Dec. 2024 media statement from the archivist and deputy archivist of the United States, declaring the ERA “cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions.”

The ERA is officially dead, as numerous legal scholars and judicial experts have concluded. It was a not so subtle way to enshrine a “right” to abortion into the Constitution by using a neutral sounding name. Its supporters have decisively lost but pro-life citizens must continue to remain vigilant and beat back any further attempts to argue for its ratification.