By Hannah Meisel

* It was a sleepy morning at the Capitol, as most Fridays tend to be, but there was this one moment on the House floor when Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D-Aurora) got up on a point of personal privilege, congratulating her female colleagues — especially the working mothers — reaching their levels of professional success while dealing with systems set up for men in the workplace.

Then she stumped for the passage of the ERA (you’ll remember the vote was delayed Wednesday when Lou Lang said he didn’t have the votes because of an “attendance issue.”)…

“We need the Equal Rights Amendment now to ensure that women are not forced to completely sacrifice caring for themselves and their children in order to provide for their families. Gov. Rauner, you know I spoke to you this week and I said, ‘I love you and I bless you and I’m praying for you,’ but it is also your responsibility that falls heavy for this state. The responsibility to all the working mothers in Illinois to encourage — please encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and your Republican counterparts to do the right thing by women and support the Equal Rights Amendment.”

* Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) immediately responded to Chapa LaVia’s statement, warning that passage of the ERA would take away any special privileges women have gained through female-focused legislation in the past couple of years…

“While I appreciate the previous speaker’s remark, I’d like to point out that if we were to pass the ERA Amendment, everything she just spoke about and advocated for would be gone. There would be no distinction between sexes at all, there would be no breastfeeding rooms, there would be no bills, as Rep. Moeller even passed stating we should have a Women’s Task Force that dealt with women’s issues. All of that would be negated if we were to pass an ERA Amendment. It would literally say there is no distinction or difference between the sexes, which is absolutely ridiculous and unscientific. So, um, enough of this. Let’s just get back to the duties and the work that we’re supposed to do here. I’ll tell you what — personally, I have never felt that my progress at the statehouse has been impeded by my sex. Nor have I ever felt held back by my sex. Women have more opportunities than ever before in our lifetime. Women complete more college degrees than men do. Let’s just realize that scientifically speaking, there is a difference between the sexes, and you have come up with a number of bills, you have proposed a number of bills to recognize that distinction, and I’d just like to point that out.”

* Rae Hodge puzzled through it…

So there's this division in ERA opponent arguments I cant get my head around:

One hand: they say abortion rights'd be HARDER to deny bc it'd mean female sex desrimination. Other hand: they say breastfeeding rights'd be EASIER to deny bc it'd mean male sex discrimination.

 ∴?

— Rae Hodge (@RaeHodge) May 18, 2018

If ERA would make it harder to deny abortion rights bc they're sex-specific rights, wouldn't that mean other sex-specific rights would likewise be harder to deny?

Both = sex-specific rights. So if ERA = no breastfeeding rights wouldn't it mean no abortion rights?

Which is it?

— Rae Hodge (@RaeHodge) May 18, 2018

* Related…

* What Could Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Really Mean?