The regulation also includes a prohibition on interference with the accommodations; it further forbids retaliation against a person who uses the accommodations.
The Monday ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana found that the EEOC “exceeded its statutory authority to implement the PWFA” and in doing so “both unlawfully expropriated the authority of Congress and encroached upon the sovereignty” of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs were granted a preliminary injunction “until final judgment is entered” in the case, the ruling said.
District Judge David Joseph said in the decision that the PWFA was not originally passed to include abortion accommodations.
“If Congress had intended to mandate that employers accommodate elective abortions under the PWFA, it would have spoken clearly when enacting the statute, particularly given the enormous social, religious, and political importance of the abortion issue in our nation at this time,” the judge said.
The federal government “failed to include a broad religious exception” in the abortion mandate, Joseph wrote. The bishops, the ruling said, “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on their claims of statutory and constitutional overreach.”
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