Judge shields Catholic employers from mandate to provide time off for abortion, IVF

At issue are new regulations issued this year by President Joe Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that reinterpret the medical conditions covered in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to include abortion. / Credit: Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 24, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

A Monday ruling from a federal judge in North Dakota shields thousands of Catholic parishes and employers — for now — from new regulations mandating time off for abortions and fertility treatments as part of federal legislation originally designed to help mothers.

At issue were new regulations issued by President Joe Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) this year that reinterpreted the medical conditions covered in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to include abortion and, in some situations, fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

The PWFA, which took effect in 2023, requires employers to accommodate women for workplace limitations that arise from pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions and enjoyed the support of the U.S. Catholic bishops until the new rules were announced. 

A lawsuit against the rules was filed in June in the U.S. District Court for the Western Division of North Dakota by the Diocese of Bismarck and the Catholic Benefits Association, a ministry that says it represents 85 Catholic dioceses and archdioceses, 1,380 Catholic employers, and 7,100 Catholic parishes.

The Sept. 23 preliminary injunction in the case by U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor enjoins the EEOC from interpreting the new rules against the Bismarck Diocese or CBA members “in a manner that would require them to accommodate abortion or infertility treatments that are contrary to the Catholic faith, speak in favor of the same, or refrain from speaking against the same.”

In addition, the EEOC and its agents cannot force employees of the Bismarck Diocese or CBA members to “speak or communicate in favor of abortion, fertility treatments, or gender transition when such is contrary to the Catholic faith.”

The abortion leave mandate had already been blocked by a different lawsuit filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in May on behalf of the U.S. bishops, The Catholic University of America, and two Catholic dioceses. On June 17, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana protected the Catholic ministries in the lawsuit as well as all employees in Louisiana and Mississippi from the mandate while the case proceeds. 

Additional protection

However, the North Dakota ruling is the first to include a block on the leave mandate for fertility treatments, according to the National Women’s Law Center. The Catholic Church teaches that the use of IVF is “morally unacceptable” as it uses artificial means to achieve pregnancy outside of sex and it creates excess human embryos that are routinely destroyed or indefinitely frozen.

“The agency should have known it would not be allowed to force individuals to violate sincerely held religious beliefs,” Traynor, the North Dakota judge, wrote. 

Formally introduced in April, the controversial EEOC rule change expanded the scope of accommodations that employers must make for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” to also include workers’ decisions about “having or choosing not to have an abortion.” 

It would have applied to all public and private employers with 15 or more workers and was contingent on the accommodations not presenting an “undue hardship on the operation of the business of the covered entity.”

After first announcing the planned change in the Federal Register in August 2023, the commission allowed 60 days for public comment. During that time, despite the commission receiving 54,000 comments against the inclusion of abortion and 40,000 in support, the commission decided to go ahead with the rule change.