The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed addition to the United States Constitution aimed at preventing discrimination based on sex. Without this amendment, there's no explicit ban against such discrimination in the Constitution. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed this position in the Dobbs decision, stating that the existing 14th Amendment doesn't fully cover issues like sex discrimination, contraception, or same-sex marriage.

The ERA doesn't just reinstate protections for women and LGBTQ+ individuals; it strengthens them. In Maryland, we already have a state-level equal rights amendment, passed in 1972, which safeguards all Marylanders from sex-based discrimination. However, without the federal ERA, Maryland's protections could be overridden. Furthermore, both state and federal laws promoting sex equality can be easily repealed or replaced, as demonstrated by recent attempts to restrict abortion access and court rulings limiting the sale of abortion medication.