With the adoption of a "personhood" amendment plank to their platform, the Republican Party has implicitly accepted the following logic:
Fetuses should have rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Males should have rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Except for the right to vote, females should not have rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Let that sink in for a moment. Women carry fetuses to term, but the GOP says fetal rights should trump those of the mother. If you doubt that women are left unprotected by the supreme law of the land, explain why a specific amendment was needed to ensure their voting rights. If the GOP were to have its way, women wouldn't be second-class citizens, but third-class.
Now, I doubt they think this way in ordinary life. They have mothers after all, and many have wives, sisters and daughters. Hell, even Todd Akin has a wife and two daughters. Maybe they think the Equal Rights Amendment died thirty years ago.
Here's the thing: It didn't.
The Equal Rights Amendment failed because only 35 of the necessary 38 states ratified it in the time alloted by Congress to do so. It could be salvaged in one of two ways. It could be sent to the states as a fresh initiative; or Congress could reopen the time allotment to enable three more states to ratify it. In nearly every Congress since it failed, both options have been presented to Congress. In the current one, the relevant bills are S.J.Res. 21, sponsored by Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and H.J.Res. 69, sponsored by Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Judy Biggart (R-IL). The Senate bill has 15 co-sponsors; the House version, 183. Unsurprisingly, nearly all are Democrats.
With all the furor over Akin and the War on Women in general, how is everyone missing that the GOP believes their mothers, wives, daughters and sisters should have no explicit Constitutional protection? Republican candidates should be asked their position on the "personhood" amendment, and in the next breath asked why they don't support the Equal Rights Amendment. The moment to bring the ERA back to the table is right now.