WASHINGTON (BP) – The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is asking the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to remove abortion-related language from the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations.

According to the EEOC website, “The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is a new law that requires covered employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an “undue hardship.”

In the proposed act, the EEOC includes abortion in its list of “pregnancy related medical conditions.” The act was first announced in August, and the window for public comments closes Tuesday (Oct. 10). The ERLC filed comments Monday.

“We urge each sponsor of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to file an official comment on this proposal and demand abortion be dropped from this regulation,” said Brent Leatherwood, ERLC president and the signatory of the letter.

“Failure to do so will only empower a radical agency to completely disregard clear congressional intent and, more alarmingly, turn a law meant to help mothers and children thrive into the abortion regime’s newest tool to destroy life,” Leatherwood said.

The ERLC said in a press release sent to Baptist Press, “The ERLC affirms the important objective of the bipartisan PWFA to ensure women are given accommodations in the workplace in consideration of their health and the health of their preborn children.”

“Every human being has inherent dignity and every life should be protected,” the ERLC states in its letter to the EEOC. “In the context of the PWFA, Scripture makes it clear that mothers and children are precious and worthy of protection.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Brandon Porter serves as Associate Vice President for Convention News at the SBC Executive Committee.)