Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) said that if voters return her to Congress, she will fight to enshrine “abortion rights” and “trans rights” in the United States Constitution through the Equal Rights Amendment.
Bush laid out the plan during an appearance on The Lurie Daniel Favors Show, telling the SiriusXM Urban View host that she wants to fight for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and make it the 28th amendment. The interview posted to Favors’ YouTube channel on July 29, days before Missouri’s Democrat primary.
Bush said reviving the amendment would be a priority if she wins back her old seat.
“I’m also going to go back and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. I was the lead sponsor, along with my sister Ayanna Pressley, in the Congress. First time in history,” Bush said. “We hit the 100-year mark of the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment, and two black women were sponsoring that bill.”
Bush framed the ERA as the mechanism for locking in a range of left-wing policy priorities, including transgender and abortion policy.
“When we look at the protections with that, discrimination in the workplace based upon sex, in education, in housing, and then also trans rights, abortion rights, so much is up under that equal rights amendment,” Bush said. “So enshrining gender equality is important.”
During a 2023 House hearing on women’s health, she claimed transgender people need medication abortions to cope with restrictions on sex-change procedures for minors, arguing the drugs were “life-saving” and comparing them to over-the-counter medication “like Tylenol,” Fox News reported at the time.
Bush, a member of the far-left “Squad” who represented her district from 2021 to 2025, launched her comeback bid last October, blaming the pro-Israel group AIPAC and Republican opponents for her defeat to fellow Democrat Wesley Bell in 2024. She is running against incumbent Bell for the nomination. Voters will decide the Bell-Bush rematch in Tuesday’s Democrat primary.
Former President Joe Biden declared in the final days of his term that the ERA was the “law of the land” and the 28th amendment, a claim legal experts and the National Archives rejected. The Archivist of the United States has refused to certify or publish the amendment, citing Justice Department opinions that the 1982 ratification deadline, which was not met, remains valid. No federal court has recognized the ERA as part of the Constitution.
“While officially it would ensure that men and women have equal rights, legal scholars and top elected Republicans explain in great detail how it would instead abolish all sorts of vital legal distinctions and protections,” Breitbart News reported in 2025. “These would range from blocking even the most modest restrictions on abortion through the moment of birth, to allowing men in women’s sports and locker rooms, to making it potentially illegal to have a Father’s Day and Mother’s Day on the calendar as holidays.”
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