{"id":329973,"date":"2025-04-20T13:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T18:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=329973"},"modified":"2025-04-17T21:58:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T02:58:31","slug":"federal-judge-catholic-employers-abortion-accommodations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/federal-judge-catholic-employers-abortion-accommodations\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge: Catholic employers don’t have to provide abortion accommodations"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

A federal judge in North Dakota ruled<\/a> this week that Catholic employers do not<\/em> need to provide abortion accommodations as outlined in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission\u2019s (EEOC) Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).<\/p>\n

Under the Biden administration, the EEOC expanded the PWFA to stipulate that employers have to offer \u201creasonable accommodations<\/a>,\u201d including time off, for women to get abortions. According to OSV News<\/a>, the provision would have also required employers to accommodate\u00a0 “IVF or pregnancy surrogacy, to eliminate single-sex spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms, and allow employees to adopt preferred pronouns.”<\/p>\n

These requirements were challenged in a lawsuit by the Catholic Benefits Association and the Diocese of Bismarck on the basis that they violated their religious freedom. The Catholic Benefits Association represents<\/a>\u00a087 Catholic dioceses in the United States, along with 1,400 other Catholic organizations.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor’s April 15 ruling makes permanent a preliminary injunction he placed on the provision in September 2024.<\/p>\n

READ: Catholic medical professionals sue to overturn Biden abortion mandate<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe facts and evidence in this case have not changed since the preliminary injunction was issued,\u201d Traynor wrote<\/a> in his ruling. \u201cEEOC has not met the burden of proving a compelling interest. \u2026 The Court adopts its previous reasoning and finds that CBA succeeds on the merits of its claim that the Act violates their rights under RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act).\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney for the plaintiffs Martin Nussbaum praised the ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that we\u2019ve seen is an emerging practice on behalf of some of the federal administrations \u2014 we also see this in certain states \u2014 a desire not only to mandate immoral benefits but to impose speech codes that would be contrary to Catholic values,\u201d Nussbaum said. \u201cBut the speech codes go beyond pronouns to even speaking about what Catholic teaching is, and we\u2019re just grateful to this court for protecting the freedom of speech of Catholic organizations as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishop David D. Kagan, of Bismarck added, \u201cThe Court has upheld our religious freedom rights and that is all we ever wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge in North Dakota ruled this week that Catholic employers do not need to provide abortion accommodations as outlined in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission\u2019s (EEOC) Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). Under the Biden administration, the EEOC expanded the PWFA to stipulate that employers have to offer \u201creasonable accommodations,\u201d including time off, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":286587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nFederal judge: Catholic employers don't have to provide abortion accommodations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Under the Biden administration, the EEOC expanded the PWFA to require employers to offer time off for women to get abortions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/federal-judge-catholic-employers-abortion-accommodations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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