Judge rules federal government can’t enforce abortion rule in Los Angeles, Miss.

A federal judge on Monday granted the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as employers in two Southern states, a temporary exemption from complying with a federal rule that would have required them to give female workers leave and work. other accommodations in the workplace in the event of abortion.

Judge David Joseph granted the preliminary injunction in two consolidated lawsuits, one brought by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the other brought by the American Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic University and two Catholic dioceses.

The lawsuits challenge rules issued in April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which declared abortions to be among the pregnancy-related conditions covered by the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act, passed in December 2022 and came into force last year.

The EEOC rules take effect Tuesday.

Joseph, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, directed the EEOC to enforce the abortion provision of its rules against Catholic plaintiffs and employers located in Louisiana and Mississippi for the duration of the trial.

His ruling comes just days after a federal judge in Arkansas dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by 17 states, led by Arkansas and Tennessee. U.S. District Judge D. P. Marshall, Jr., of the Eastern District of Arkansas, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the states lacked standing to sue .

“The district court applied a common-sense interpretation of the plain terms of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in an emailed statement.

Louisiana’s decision was a partial victory for the attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, who had sought a much broader emergency injunction that would have blocked the entire EEOC rules from taking effect nationwide. national. The request has alarmed some civil rights and women’s groups, who have warned that the EEOC’s rules are critical to successful implementation of the law.

In an amicus brief, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Women’s Law Center, along with more than 20 women’s and workers’ rights groups, cited dozens of cases of pregnant workers whose employers sued to resist granting them accommodations, and said the EEOC rules provided clarity for resolving disputes.

“The court left some pregnant workers who need abortion-related accommodations to fend for themselves,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president of workplace justice and education at the NWLC.

Rachel Shanklin, national director of women’s entrepreneurship for Small Business Majority, said even Monday’s limited ruling would have a big impact by making it “more difficult – at least temporarily – for women to access abortion care on work place”.

“Our research consistently finds that women entrepreneurs say the ability to choose if and when to start a family plays an important role in their ability to advance their careers and launch their small businesses,” Shanklin said in a statement.

Dina Bakst, co-founder and president of the legal advocacy group A Better Balance, which led a decade-long campaign for the law, condemned the Louisiana ruling, saying it “ignored decades of legal precedent ” interpreting medical conditions related to pregnancy to include abortion.

However, she stressed that it was “important that pregnant and postpartum workers understand that this decision does not mean that their rights under the PWFA have been taken away”, given the limited scope of the injunction.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was passed with broad bipartisan support in December 2022 after a decade-long campaign by women’s rights advocates, who hailed it as a victory for low-wage workers who are routinely denied accommodations for everything from time off for medical appointments to the ability to sit or stand at work.

But many Republican lawmakers, including Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who co-sponsored the bill, were furious when the EEOC said the law covered abortions. Both Republican commissioners of the five-member EEOC voted against the rules.

In its settlement, the EEOC said the inclusion of abortion was consistent with its own interpretation of the decades-old pregnancy anti-discrimination law, as well as numerous court decisions supporting this. interpretation.

The regulations also clarified that the rules do not require any employer to provide health care coverage for abortions and that the most likely accommodation request would be time off to undergo the procedure or recover from any complications. The EEOC said any situation in which a request for accommodation potentially conflicts with state laws would be considered “on a case-by-case basis.”

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general said “the EEOC forces states like Louisiana and Mississippi to go against state law and effectively facilitate abortion.”

Mississippi bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Louisiana has a near-total ban on abortion, with exemptions when there is a substantial risk of death or inability for the patient to continue the pregnancy and in cases where the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

In its lawsuit, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said it publicly supported the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act because lawmakers emphasized its noncontroversial nature, with some specifically saying it would not require licensing for voluntary abortions.

Laura Wolk Slavis, an attorney representing Catholic groups, said “the EEOC has hijacked bipartisan protection for pregnant women and their babies, imposing a national abortion accommodation mandate. She said the ruling was a “crucial step” in restoring the law. to its objective.”