Wesley Tingey / Unsplash
US District Judge David Joseph ruled May 21 that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) must remove language requiring employers to accommodate employee abortions, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.
Joseph made the ruling in two cases in the Western District of Louisiana courts — one brought by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi and the other by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Congress passed the PWFA in 2022, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a rule implementing it in April 2024. In the rule’s examples of reasonable accommodations, the EEOC mandated “that employers must knowingly agree to allow their employees to take leave, including paid leave, to have an abortion,” as CatholicVote reported.
In May 2024, the states of Louisiana and Mississippi sued the EEOC. Later in May 2024, the religious liberty law firm Becket also sued the EEOC over the mandate, on behalf of the USCCB.
The USCCB had supported the original text for the PWFA legislation, which Congress passed by Congress in 2022, because it required employers to provide reasonable accommodations, such as modified work schedules, for pregnant employees.
Becket argued in a news release at the time that the EEOC had “weaponized” the PWFA with the pro-abortion provision. USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty Chairman Bishop Kevin Rhoades said it was “indefensible for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to twist the law in a way that violates the consciences of pro-life employers by making them facilitate abortions.”
Joseph said in the May 21 ruling that the EEOC “exceeded its statutory authority to implement the PWFA and, in doing so, both unlawfully expropriated the authority of Congress and encroached upon the sovereignty of the Plaintiff States under basic principles of federalism.”
“….[A]ny analysis of the Final Rule must begin with the presumption that Congress’s decision not to include any reference to abortion in the PWFA was intentional… from a strictly textual standpoint, there is a complete lack of support for the EEOC’s contention that Congress intended for abortion to be defined as a ‘medical condition’ under the PWFA,” the ruling stated.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill celebrated the ruling in a May 21 X post, stating: “This is a win for Louisiana and for life!”
According to the law firm Ogletree Deakins, it is unlikely that the EEOC will appeal the decision.