Conservatives lobby to keep abortion out of new pregnant worker protection law
Gabrielle M. Etzel
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Conservatives are pushing to keep abortion out of the Biden administration‘s interpretation of a new law on pregnant workers’ rights.
In June, Congress passed with bipartisan support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, or the PWFA, which was intended to require employers to provide their pregnant or recently postpartum employees with reasonable accommodation, such as time off, seating, and bathroom and drink breaks.
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In a proposed rule for implementing the statute, though, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission used an expansive definition of the law’s language that protects “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” to include birth control, menstruation, lactation, fertility treatments, miscarriage, or “having or choosing not to have an abortion.”
Republicans say Congress did not intend to include abortion and that the agency’s proposal flouts the law.
“The fact that there is no reference to abortion means it’s not allowed,” Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told the Washington Examiner. “The EEOC cannot write rules that include abortion. It’s crystal clear to me that it was clear in both the House and the Senate.”
Tuesday was the last day to file comments on the EEOC’s proposed rule to execute the PWFA. More than 10,000 responses were submitted by the public. The EEOC must provide some response to these comments prior to instituting the final version of the rule in late December.
“The goal of the PWFA is to ensure a safe workplace for pregnant mothers and their unborn children,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) wrote in his public comment letter against the Biden administration’s interpretation of the law. “Using it instead to advance abortion access via regulation corrupts bipartisan legislating and leaves the Commission open to legal challenges on several grounds.”
Cassidy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has been sharply criticized by anti-abortion activists for not incorporating explicit language in the statute prohibiting the EEOC from protecting abortion. However, Cassidy’s communications director, Ty Bofferding, told the Washington Examiner that the Biden administration would have disregarded legislative intent regardless.
Bofferding also said Cassidy’s comment against the EEOC’s proposed rule quoted co-sponsoring Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), who said on the Senate floor that “the EEOC, could not — could not — issue any regulation that requires abortion leave, nor does the act permit the EEOC to require employers to provide abortions in violation of State law.”
“Abortion is not a medical condition related to pregnancy; it is the opposite. It terminates the pregnancy, tragically ending the life of an unborn child,” Foxx and Vice Chairwoman Mary Miller (R-IL) wrote in their joint comment on the rule. “Similarly, abortion is not related to childbirth; it ends the possibility of childbirth.”
Religious exemptions for the accommodation of abortion are also at issue. As the proposed rule stands, the EEOC is weighing whether the final rule should require religious organizations to provide accommodations irrespective of their convictions.
Andrew Langer, director of CPAC‘s Center for Regulatory Freedom, told the Washington Examiner that he is particularly concerned the EEOC will force employers to comply with the agency’s interpretation of the statute, offering no exemptions for the new rule.
“Not only is the Biden administration pushing the abortion issue in a rulemaking which is supposed to be about protecting pregnant women, but it is also using the EEOC as an instrument in getting rid of the protections of religious freedom that Americans have enjoyed for centuries — just as this administration has done in rulemakings at HHS and the Department of Education,” Langer said.
In their comment on the rule, Foxx and Miller said the statute’s text directly states there must be religious exemptions under Title VII, which is similar to the religious exemptions for the Americans with Disabilities Act. As such, there should be no question of these protections in the final rule.
“The Biden administration is committed to betraying the sanctity of life by pushing policies that undermine the rights of the unborn,” Miller told the Washington Examiner.
Foxx went a step further, calling the Biden administration “the most anti-life” in history.
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“The Biden administration is the most anti-traditional American values administration we’ve ever had in this country,” Foxx said. “You see evidence of it everywhere.”
The EEOC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.