17 States Challenge EEOC Rule Making Employers Accommodate Workers’ AbortionsKatherine Hamilton 29 Apr 2024
Seventeen Republican-led states are suing President Joe Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for forcing employers across the United States to accommodate workers’ abortions.
Attorneys general filed the lawsuit on Friday following the EEOC’s decision to include abortion in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The PWFA passed with bipartisan support in 2022 and did not include language about abortion. Instead, the law was created to allow reasonable workplace accommodations for pregnant and postpartum mothers such as time off and flexible breaks, unless the accommodation would result in an undue hardship for the employer.
“This is yet another attempt by the Biden administration to force through administrative fiat what it cannot get passed through Congress,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement. “Under this radical interpretation of the PWFA, business owners will face federal lawsuits if they don’t accommodate employees’ abortions, even if those abortions are illegal under state law. The PWFA was meant to protect pregnancies, not end them.”
“The new rule, passed by a bare 3-2 majority of unelected EEOC commissioners, goes beyond what Congress authorized under the PWFA,” Griffin added.
When Congress passed the PWFA, it tasked the EEOC with issuing the rule and providing examples of reasonable accommodations. The EEOC’s final rule includes abortion in its definition of accommodating employees who have “limitations related to … pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” and applies the rule to public and private businesses with 15 or more employees.
The EEOC claimed that the final rule “does not require any employee to have — or not to have — an abortion, does not require taxpayers to pay for any abortions, and does not compel health care providers to provide any abortions. The PWFA also cannot be used to require an employer-sponsored health plan to pay for or cover any particular item, procedure, or treatment, including an abortion.”
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/29/17-states-challenge-eeoc-rule-making-employers-accommodate-workers-abortions/
