A leading pro-life organization is rallying against the Biden administration’s attempt to transform a bipartisan effort to support pregnant women in the workplace into a rule that would make employers facilitate their employees’ abortions.
Students for Life Action (SFLAction) launched a nationwide effort on Friday, calling on voters to oppose the “radical change” to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). The Federal Register has published the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) proposed regulations to change the PWFA, allowing people, organizations, legislators, etc., to comment during a 60-day period. SFLAction also set up an easy commenting page to ensure people have the opportunity to object to the changes.
“The Biden Administration won’t be happy until abortion pervades every aspect of our lives, as evidenced by their attempt to sneak abortion — the ending of a new human life — into a program that is about the exact opposite: supporting the growth of a new human life,” Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins said in an emailed statement.
“It doesn’t get much more backwards than that, but that’s exactly what we’ve seen time and again from this administration. Biden’s slogan might be ‘Build Back Better,’ but it sure looks like ‘Build in Abortion Wherever,’” Hawkins added.
The EEOC announced on August 7 that it has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, outlining changes to the PWFA. The act was passed into law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (pg. 1,626) and requires employers with 15 or more workers to accommodate the “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition” of a “qualified employee.”
The law, which went into effect on June 27, authorized the EEOC to create regulations that “provide examples of reasonable accommodations addressing known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” a year after the law’s enactment.
The proposed regulations include abortion as part of pregnancy outcomes, despite the original legislation mentioning nothing about ending the lives of unborn babies.
“The list in the regulation for the definition of ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions’ includes current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation (including breastfeeding and pumping), use of birth control, menstruation, infertility and fertility treatments, endometriosis, miscarriage, stillbirth, or having or choosing not to have an abortion, among other conditions,” the proposal reads.
The EEOC noted that the list is “non-exhaustive” and that “an employee or applicant does not have to specify a condition on this list or use medical terms to describe a condition in order to be eligible for a reasonable accommodation.” The unpublished regulations do request that the public comment on how the change would impact the religious liberty of employers.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) senior counsel Julie Marie Blake previously slammed the proposed rule in a statement and said it “hijacks” the bipartisan law and infringes on the religious liberty of pro-life employers.
“Congress sought to help pregnant workers, not force employers to facilitate abortions. The Biden administration is hijacking a bipartisan law that doesn’t even mention abortion to forcibly require every employer in America to provide ‘reasonable accommodations’ for their workers’ elective abortions,” Blake said.
“The administration’s unlawful proposal violates state laws protecting the unborn and employers’ pro-life and religious beliefs,” she continued. “The administration doesn’t have the legal authority to smuggle an abortion mandate into a transformational pro-life, pro-woman law. Alliance Defending Freedom stands ready to continue defending unborn lives and to oppose this egregious federal overreach.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
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