A President Donald Trump-appointed judge has ended a Biden-era rule that forced employers to give their workers time off for abortions.
The rule was struck down by U.S. District Judge David Joseph of the Western District of Louisiana.
Judge Joseph said that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) overreached its authority when it included abortion with pregnancy-related conditions that receive job protections.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) was passed in 2022 with bipartisan support.
The text of the act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide “reasonable accommodations to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.”
During the review process, the EEOC got 54,000 comments urging it not to include abortion in the rule.
40,000, meanwhile, commented in favor of adding it.
The suit was brought by attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic University, and two Catholic dioceses.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill celebrated the decision: “Victory!
“A federal court has granted Louisiana’s request to strike down an EEOC rule requiring employers to accommodate employees’ purely elective abortions.
“This is a win for Louisiana and for life!”
A Better Balance, a legal advocacy group that supported the PWFA, conversely described the ruling as a part of a “broader attack on women’s rights and reproductive freedom.”
While the Trump administration is not likely to appeal the ruling, it has defended the PWFA under other circumstances.
The DOJ has not been super-friendly to life so far, which is odd because Trump had a big part in overturning Roe V. Wade.
Earlier in May, the agency tried to get legal challenges brought by Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho to restrict access to the abortion pill dismissed.
Abortion pills account for the vast majority of abortions in the U.S.
Trump has resisted GOP pressure to outlaw abortion on a national level.
The president has long asserted that laws on abortion should be left to the states.
He most recently expressed some support for a 15-week abortion ban, which would not prevent most of these early-term, pill abortions.
This dichotomy is difficult to understand, but it seems to be a more nuanced view of abortion than many Republicans want to see.
