New York’s ‘Equal Rights Amendment’ Is a Left-Wing Trojan Horse

Democratic lawmakers have dressed up Proposal 1 as protecting abortion rights, but in fact it’s a vehicle for unpopular progressive policies and agendas.

By John Faso

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the abortion issue to the individual states, New York and other states took steps to place constitutional amendments protecting abortion rights on their ballots.

Most of these ballot measures specifically reference abortion and describe the legal parameters of its authorization.

Not so New York’s. Within days of Dobbs, Governor Kathy Hochul and Democratic legislators, who control supermajorities in the state senate and assembly, crafted a constitutional amendment ostensibly to protect abortion rights but that deals with much more than abortion — while never even mentioning that word.

The amendment, appearing as Proposal 1 on the ballot, is a Trojan horse, stealthily adding new protected classes of citizens whose rights are already protected under state law. It would embed a transgender-activist and DEI agenda into the state constitution while at the same time giving new rights to noncitizens.

The proposed amendment would revise the state constitution’s Section 11, which protects citizens from discrimination based on race, creed, color, or religion. Proposal 1 would add new protected classes based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex. “Sex” includes “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

Existing state law already protects individuals in each of these new protected classes from discrimination. Adding these categories to the state constitution creates inevitable conflict with other long-standing statutory protections, particularly the explicit protection of parental rights to make health-care decisions for their minor children.