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Diving overview:
- Seventeen states sued the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Thursday. Request for stay and preliminary injunction This is one of the pregnancy convenience regulations recently promulgated by the agency.
- The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, alleges that the EEOC: Final Rule Implementing the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act It is arbitrary and capricious, and the abortion accommodation provisions conflict with the PWFA and therefore violate the Administrative Procedure Act.
- The state also argued that the rule would force states “to promote and enforce federal priorities for abortions that are illegal under state law” and require employers to accommodate elective abortions in violation of the First Amendment’s free speech protections. Therefore, they argued that this rule was unconstitutional.
Dive Insights:
The PWFA requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodation to job applicants and employees with known limitations related to: Pregnancy, childbirth and related diseases, there is no undue difficulty. The EEOC's rule, which is scheduled to take effect June 18, interprets the phrase “relevant medical condition” to include having an abortion or choosing not to have one.
The committee first addressed the issue of including abortion-related protections in the proposed 2023 rule. Criticism of the move included Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a co-sponsor of the PWFA. Who Says EEOC Ignored Congressional Intent. In Thursday's lawsuit, the state cited Cassidy's objections in its complaint.
Tennessee, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, includes Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota. The state, Utah and West Virginia joined.
Aside from asking an Arkansas federal court to uphold and ban the rule, the plaintiffs argued that the EEOC's structure as an independent federal agency whose members are protected from arbitrary removal by the president is unconstitutional.
“Alternatively, as a matter of constitutional avoidance, this court should declare that the EEOC’s organic law, which provides for term appointments only, does not implicitly provide for-cause removal protection,” the plaintiffs said. “The EEOC’s illegal structure renders the rule illegal and requires the final rule to be invalidated.”
An EEOC spokesperson referred HR Dive to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The EEOC said the rule does not require PWFAs to have employer-sponsored health insurance to pay for or cover abortions. Nor does it require the reasonable accommodation of an employer to pay for travel for an abortion. At an April 15 press conference announcing the rule, EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said employers will have the opportunity to: Oppose abortion convenienceEspecially for religious reasons.