“The bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, as written, is a pro-life law that protects the security and physical health of pregnant mothers and their preborn children,” Rhoades, the chairman of the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty, said in the statement.
“It is indefensible for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to twist the law in a way that violates the consciences of pro-life employers by making them facilitate abortions,” the prelate argued.
The USCCB had last year submitted comments on the proposed rule in which the bishops, along with the Catholic University of America, argued that the PWFA “does not require the provision of any benefit for purposes of facilitating an abortion.”
“The intent of the PWFA is to require accommodations for ‘pregnancy,’ ‘childbirth,’ and
‘related medical conditions’ — in other words, to assist pregnant workers and workers giving birth to a child by providing accommodations that would permit them to continue to remain both gainfully employed and healthily pregnant,” the bishops and the school argued in the comments.
“Abortion is neither pregnancy nor childbirth,” they argued. “And it is not ‘related’ to pregnancy or childbirth as those terms are used in the PWFA because it intentionally ends pregnancy and prevents childbirth.”
The USCCB had previously supported the PWFA when it was being considered by Congress, despite some concerns at the time that the bill could be used to force employers to pay for abortion expenses.
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