Arianna Peper
Editor-in-Chief
According to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first national movement for women’s rights was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Nearly 180 years later, women continue to have their rights limited by the government.
In January of 2025, Republican Congressman Chip Roy (Texas) introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This act would require a passport or certified birth certificate in combination with a photo ID.
According to the Center for American Progress, the original SAVE Act was passed in the House in April of 2025 but stalled in the Senate due to widespread public backlash against the legislation.
A newer version of this act, often referred to as the “SAVE America Act,” increases the difficulties for women and other minority groups in the voting process. After its approval in the House, President Donald Trump has been pushing the Senate to pass the act, mentioning it numerous times within his State of the Union address, according to Delaware Online.
If these acts were put in place, the requirement of a passport, birth certificate, in combination with a photo ID at their election office, would place increased limitations upon multiple groups, especially a large majority of women.
Firstly, the requirement to show documentation in person would effectively “block the voter registration methods that 94 percent of Americans use—methods such as submitting a registration application online, mailing in an application, and registering at a motor vehicle agency such as the DMV,” according to the Center for American Progress.
In addition to this, the 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name; therefore, they would be unable to vote without the presentation of this documentation, which places an extreme limit on their rights.
Along with voting rights at risk of being limited, women’s rights in the workforce are also at risk due to Trump’s involvement in the changes within the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC is an independent federal agency with a bipartisan slate of five commissioners and is at the “frontlines of civil rights enforcement, investigating and remedying employment discrimination charges. In FY 2023 alone, the Commission received more than 81,000 complaints of alleged discrimination, including discrimination by sex, race, religion, and age,” according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.
The EEOC plays a vital role in ensuring that all workers – and women workers in particular– are treated equally. However, in January of 2025, after Trump fired two of the three Democratic commissioners on the five-seat EEOC as well as the general counsel, Jocelyn Samuels, Charlotte Burrows and General Counsel Karla Gilbride, therefore “depriving the agency of quorum,” according to an article from Littler Mendelson P.C and the National Partnership for Women & Families.
With the deprivation of quorum, the minimum number of members of an assembly that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid, the EEOC is unable to make significant policy changes and therefore cannot protect the rights of women in the workforce.
As for threats to women’s health, Trump has revoked several of former President Joe Biden’s executive orders, including Executive Order 14076, which outlined that “the United States Constitution’s protection of women’s fundamental right to make reproductive healthcare decisions. These deeply private decisions should not be subject to government interference,” according to the federalregister.gov.
While these government actions of executive orders, acts, impacting agencies continue, women– and many other minority groups – face extreme oppression toward their personal rights.
As democracy is the foundation of the United States, it is critical that individuals take action against certain acts that may threaten that democracy. Some examples of this could include petitions, protesting and voting in elections for certain representatives or policies that protect one’s rights.
Arianna Peper–Editor in Chief
This will be Arianna Peper’s third year on ECHO staff. She made several contributions while taking journalism class her freshman year.
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