ACLJ Submits Public Comment in Opposition to EEOC’s Attempt To Expand Abortion Through the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

The Biden Administration will stop at nothing to radically expand abortion across the United States. Incredibly, one of the more recent attempts at this expansion has been through the EEOC’s proposed rule to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)—interpreting the act to include coverage for abortion. This turns on its head a law that was intended to promote life and protect pregnant women in the workplace throughout their pregnancy, rewriting the law to promote women ending their pregnancies through abortion while working.

We just recently submitted an official public comment from the ACLJ in opposition to the rule. In this comment, we addressed the EEOC’s misguided justification for misinterpreting the Act to require protections for abortion, how the rule directly conflicts with congressional intent, and the rule’s implications were it to be adopted.

As Senator Bob Casey (PA) stated, “The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a very straightforward piece of legislation; it closes a loophole in the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act to allow pregnant workers to request reasonable accommodations so that they can continue working safely during pregnancy and upon returning to work after childbirth.”

Likewise, Senator Steve Daines (MT) added, “I want to make clear for the record that the terms ‘pregnancy’ and ‘related medical conditions,’ for which accommodations to their known limitations are required under the legislation, do not include abortion.”

Despite these statements and many more like it, the proposed rule blatantly defies the drafters’ intent. The rule’s definitions for “related medical conditions” and “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” include “termination of pregnancy, including via miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion” and “having or choosing not to have an abortion,” respectively.

This move is a purposeful advancement of the Biden Administration’s stated agenda to expand abortion in the U.S.

Clearly, this is diametrically opposed to the stated congressional intent that the PWFA applies to helping pregnant women bring their pregnancies to a full, healthy term, not aid them in ending their unborn child’s life.

The EEOC’s decision to write the rule in this manner has sparked outrage. Senator Bill Cassidy (LA), who supported the Act’s passing, has now publicly criticized the EEOC. Additionally, before the close of the public comments, nearly 100,000 comments had already been submitted.

Ramifications for the implementation of the rule as written cannot be permitted to unfold in our country. Employers’ rights are in jeopardy with scarce accommodations to be applied broadly— not to mention the lives of the unborn, that, instead of being nurtured through reasonable accommodation, will be ended in abortion.

The ACLJ is committed to being the voice of the unborn, standing in the gap with each attempt made to expand abortion.

We need each of you to fight with us, to demonstrate that it is the majority of people who will not accept defeat when it comes to the lives of our children.