about the ERA, I argue at Bloomberg View.
Her argument was that however unobjectionable most people found the amendment’s language, judges would use it to push through policies many of those same people would dislike. If the military draft ever returned, the amendment would mean that women had to be subject to it. Supporters of the right to abortion that the Supreme Court had recently pretended to find in the Constitution would use the ERA to strengthen their case, too.
Whatever one thinks of traditional gender roles and, for that matter, abortion, Schlafly’s basic argument was right.