This recent Election Day on November 5, 2024–while most people were focused on the more widely covered races–the back of the New York ballot contained six proposals, one of which was Proposition 1. It is most commonly known as the “Equal Rights Amendment,” or “Prop 1.” So, what exactly did this proposal intend to protect, and why is it important for the right to reproductive health care in New York? Here is a breakdown.
Previously, the state constitution’s Bill of Rights only explicitly prohibited discrimination against people based on their race, color, creed, and religion. The passing of Prop 1 would expand the list to include ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex. The class “sex” includes sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive healthcare, and autonomy.
When creating New York’s proposed Equal Rights Amendment, they took a different approach to protecting abortion rights compared to other states. Instead of just focusing on protecting abortion as other states proposed, New York’s Prop 1 focuses on expanding the existing criteria for protections to combat sex discrimination to make it include reproduction protections for more people. This is because previous sex discrimination impacted women and strengthened the inequality based on a person’s gender. Before overturned, Roe v. Wade ensured abortion protection through the fact that if illegal, it would restrict a person’s basic right to privacy. However, now overturned, a woman’s previous right to have an abortion or proceed with an abortion is no longer federally protected and it is now left up to the states to decide what rights women have surrounding the issue. This gives the states totally leeway to severely restrict or prohibit abortion at all together. New York worked around the fact that Roe v. Wade was overturned by listing the right to reproductive healthcare as part of guaranteed healthcare based on sex-based equality policies.
People opposed to the proposition argued that Prop 1 was broad, vague, and indirect about the issue since it does not explicitly use the word “abortion” in its wording. Critics cite the Equal Rights Amendment ballot from 2023 in Ohio, where they declared that the proposition would guarantee an “individual’s right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” It also explicitly mentioned birth control, fertility, abortions, and miscarriages. Critics are upset since they believe that the amendment does not pronounce its impact on abortion rights enough, misleading voters on what exactly they are voting on. However, people in support of the proposition claim that the language used in the proposition, “pregnancy outcomes and reproductive healthcare and autonomy,” clearly explains that this proposal would protect abortion rights as abortion is one of the four possible outcomes of pregnancy, alongside live birth, stillbirth, and spontaneous abortion. The difference between a spontaneous abortion and an induced abortion is that an induced abortion is ended intentionally while a spontaneous abortion is when a pregnancy ends by itself without a medical procedure. An induced abortion is most commonly known as simply an abortion while a spontaneous abortion is usually known as a miscarriage.
Many people have wondered why this proposal was introduced if Democrats have primary control over the New York state government and if New York state law already allows abortion, at least until the 24th week of pregnancy and if a person’s health would be at risk or if the fetus is not viable. However, if there were to be a future legislature that tried to restrict reproductive healthcare, Proposal 1 would protect New Yorkers’ rights. This is because Prop 1 is an amendment; to change the terms of the amendment would require a more extensive process, which would need to go through lawmakers twice and then through a vote by the people for the final decision. Prop 1 was created to ensure the right to abortion in New York and prevent sex discrimination since, all across the country, basic reproductive rights have been taken away from the people because of the Supreme Court’s ruling. I hope you have a better understanding of what Prop 1 is and why it was promoted throughout our city, and even around Clinton with signs on the street to turn the ballot over and vote yes on Proposition 1.
