Trump judge kills Biden requirement that employers accommodate workers' efforts to abort their unborn children



A federal judge killed a controversial Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rule and guidance on Wednesday that both required employers to provide paid leave and other accommodations to employees seeking abortion and restricted their ability to take adverse employment actions against employees' who demanded such accommodations.

U.S. District Judge David Joseph of the Western District of Louisiana, a Trump appointee, ruled that the EEOC "exceeded its statutory authority" when implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and, "in doing so, both unlawfully expropriated the authority of Congress and encroached upon the sovereignty of the Plaintiff States [Louisiana and Mississippi] under basic principles of federalism."

The ruling was in response to consolidated litigation.

The first case was brought by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, both of which passed near-total abortion bans in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, on May 13, 2024. The states argued that the Biden regulation violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution.

The second case was filed later that month by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic University of America, and two Catholic dioceses. The plaintiffs argued that the rule not only exceeded congressional authority but required them to knowingly violate their sincerely held beliefs about the "moral evil" of abortion by abetting their employees' efforts to kill their unborn children.

Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted in an op-ed last May that the original PWFA passed in 2022 was cause for celebration as its "purpose was laudable and obvious: to expand protections for pregnant women in the workplace."

'States have many legitimate interests in regulating abortion, including "respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development."'

Broglio noted, however, that the Biden EEOC "subverted the law's noble goal by turning it into an abortion-accommodation mandate. That is unjust and illegal."

Louisiana and Mississippi similarly suggested the PWFA had been hijacked, noting the Biden EEOC's "Final Rule not only runs roughshod over the PWFA's text, but also runs afoul of Dobbs."

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Guy Edward Bartkus. Image Source: FBI. American Reproductive Centers. Photo by GABRIEL OSORIO/AFP via Getty Images

"There, the Supreme Court expressly recognized that the States have many legitimate interests in regulating abortion, including 'respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development,'" the states said in their original complaint. "But the Final Rule contravenes Dobbs by requiring the Plaintiff States to accommodate the very types of abortions that they have chosen, in their sovereign capacities, to proscribe — or else face federal lawsuits for money damages and injunctive relief."

In June, Judge Joseph consolidated the cases and enjoined the EEOC from enforcing its abortion mandate against the Catholic plaintiffs as well as employers located in the two red states.

Joseph torpedoed the abortion accommodation and ordered that any implementing regulations or guidance requiring or suggesting to employees that they are required to provide employees with accommodation for purely elective abortions "are also hereby VACATED and immediately without effect."

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill celebrated the ruling, calling it a "win for Louisiana and for life!"

"This court's decision to deny workers reasonable accommodations for abortion-related needs is part of a broader attack on women's rights and reproductive freedom," said Inimai Chettiar, president of A Better Balance, a liberal activist group that previously opposed President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominees and championed the passage of the regulation. "This court's sudden decision to rewrite those regulations upends workers' and employers' understanding of and reliance on settled precedent."

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Trump judge sides with North Dakota Catholics, blocks 'anti-religion' Biden regulations



A Trump judge sided Wednesday with Catholic organizations in North Dakota, shielding them from the enforcement of a Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rule and guidance that required their complicity in employees' efforts to kill their unborn children as well as gender ideology.

The outcome was unsurprising given U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor's suggestions in September when granting a preliminary injunction to the Bismarck Diocese and the Catholic Benefits Association that "this case is not hard" and that the Biden EEOC's rule served as a "reminder of the danger of government action that is clearly anti-religion."

Background

The Biden EEOC went out of its way to issue regulations and enforcement guidelines that ran roughshod over Christian employers' constitutional freedoms.

One rule in particular, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, proved especially troubling for the Bismarck Diocese and the CBA, the latter of which serves over 9,000 employers nationwide, as it would have both required them to provide paid leave and other accommodations to employees seeking abortion and restricted their ability to criticize employees' decision to kill their children.

The EEOC also issued enforcement guidance under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the plaintiffs' original complaint noted would effectively require Catholic employers to "use false pronouns, to avoid speaking the truth regarding human sexuality around certain employees, and to permit opposite-sex employees to intrude into private spaces reserved to those of the other sex."

The Bismarck Diocese and the CBA sued the EEOC and former EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows in July 2024, seeking an injunction against the rule and guidance.

'The goal may be to find new ways to infringe on religious believers' fundamental rights.'

The plaintiffs — well positioned at the outset legally to take on the Biden administration, as a federal court in Mississippi had already enjoined the EEOC rule at issue in another case — argued that the EEOC had run afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; violated their First Amendment freedoms of speech and association along with the Free Exercise Clause; and infringed upon church autonomy.

Judge Traynor evidently agreed.

Biden admin notches another loss

Traynor permanently blocked the EEOC this week from interpreting or enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and implementing regulations against the Diocese of Bismarck and the Catholic Benefits Association "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 the same."

The Trump judge also blocked the EEOC and its agents from interpreting or enforcing Title VII in a manner that would require the Bismarck Diocese, the CBA, and future Catholic members to speak favorably about abortion or sex changes, require them to remain silent about their opposition to either, or require them to indulge transvestites' desire to use the pronouns or private spaces belonging to the opposite sex.

Traynor previously acknowledged that the suit fell "into a long line of cases that should be unnecessary in a country that was built on the concept of freedom of religion."

"One would think after all this litigation, the government would respect the boundaries of religious freedom," wrote Traynor. "Instead, it seems the goal may be to find new ways to infringe on religious believers' fundamental rights to the exercise of their religions."

The judge, a member of the Federalist Society, suggested that the "repeated illegal and unconstitutional administrative actions against one of the founding principles of our country, the free exercise of religion," possibly signal that it is indeed now "a post-Christian age."

'The Court has upheld our religious freedom rights.'

Attorney Martin Nussbaum told the Associated Press that his clients are "very thankful to the federal judiciary for vindicating religious freedom rights" in this case.

"One of the things that we've seen is an emerging practice on behalf of some of the federal administrations — we also see this in certain states — a desire not only to mandate immoral benefits but to impose speech codes that would be contrary to Catholic values," said Nussbaum. "But the speech codes go beyond pronouns to even speaking about what Catholic teaching is, and we're just grateful to this court for protecting the freedom of speech of Catholic organizations as well."

Bishop David Kagan of the Bismarck Diocese stated, "The Court has upheld our religious freedom rights, and that is all we ever wanted."

A Better Balance, a liberal activist group that previously opposed President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominees, condemned the ruling. Inimai Chettiar, the group's leftist president, suggested the case was "extremist" in nature and claimed the ruling was "part of a broad trend of attacks on women's rights and reproductive freedom."

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Federal court rules Biden administration can't force Christian businesses to pay for employees' sex changes



A federal judge ruled Monday that the Biden administration cannot compel religious employers and health care providers to compromise their sincerely held religious convictions by paying for or performing sex-change medical interventions.

The background

In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case Bostock v. Clayton County, expanding the prohibition against sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include employment discrimination against individuals on the basis of their sexual preferences or transvestism.

Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services subsequently interpreted the so-called Affordable Care Act and Title VII as requiring employer health insurance plans to cover elective sex-change procedures.

The Christian Employers Alliance, a religious business group, sued the EEOC, HHS, and various officials in the Biden administration in October 2021, stressing the two federal regulatory mandates exceeded the "government's statutory and constitutional authority."

"Many religious employers — including CEA and all its members — hold sincerely held religious beliefs that such gender transition surgeries and procedures are morally wrong," said the original complaint. "Providing these gender interventions contradicts their beliefs that God purposefully created humans as either a biological male or female and that a person's biological sex is immutable."

The CEA's complaint noted that neither the EEOC nor HHS provided religious exemptions from the mandates and that a failure to comply would expose its membership to heavy fines, burdensome litigation, possible criminal penalties, and other costs.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the CEA requested that the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota prevent the Biden administration from imposing the mandates on the CEA.

The ruling

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel M. Traynor acknowledged in his Monday ruling that HHS' interpretation of Section 1557 of the ACA and the EEOC's interpretation of Title VII would require Christian businesses to provide "insurance coverage for gender-transition procedures that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs without satisfying strict scrutiny under the [Religious Freedom Restoration Act].

"Performing or providing health care coverage for gender transition services under the EEOC and HHS coverage mandates impinges upon CEA's beliefs," wrote Traynor. "CEA must either comply with the EEOC and HHS mandates by violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or else face harsh consequences."

He also found that the Biden administration had failed to demonstrate that it could not protect transvestites' rights in a manner that didn't infringe upon the Christian employers' religious liberty.

Accordingly, Traynor slapped both agencies with permanent injunctions, precluding them from imposing their respective interpretations on the CEA in a manner that would require the complainants to perform or pay for sex-change procedures.

The reaction

Shannon Royce, the president of the CEA, said the court's ruling was "a resounding victory for all present and future members of the Christian Employers Alliance."

"We are overjoyed our members will not have to choose between the biblically based employee benefits and quality health care they provide, and the threat of federal enforcement and massive costs for practicing their faith," added Royce.

Matt Bowman, senior counsel and director of regulatory practice at the Alliance Defending Freedom, similarly celebrated the ruling.

"All employers and healthcare providers, including those in the Christian Employers Alliance, have the constitutionally protected freedom to conduct their business and render treatment in a manner consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs," said Bowman. "The court was on firm ground to stop the administration from enforcing these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith."

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