“Doesn’t this open the door for abortion rights.”

• Women already have a right to choose to have an abortion.  The right, as the Supreme Court explained in Roe v. Wade, is grounded in privacy rights, not equality, and certainly not on the basis of a non-existent federal Equal Rights Amendment. 
• Twenty-four states, including Virginia, have adopted Equal Rights Amendments in state constitutions without voiding, limiting, or expanding statutes that govern the right to have abortion procedures.
• Some state courts have ruled that a state’s refusal to fund medically necessary abortions if it funds all other medically necessary procedures violates the Equal Rights Amendment of that state’s constitution.  These court decisions, however, specifically state that they do not address the legality or morality of abortion rights.