BISMARCK, N.D. (BP) — In a stinging rebuke, a federal district judge said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cannot force a North Dakota Catholic Diocese and its insurer to grant special workplace accommodations to women recovering from abortions or fertility treatments, as the EEOC stipulated in Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) guidance.
“This case is not hard,” U.S. District Judge Daniel M. Traynor said Sept. 23 in granting the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA) and the Catholic Diocese of Bismarck a preliminary injunction against the rule. “The Agency (EEOC) should have known it would not be allowed to force individuals to violate sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Traynor granted the injunction, he said, because “CBA is likely to succeed on the merits of the RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) violation claim because the law forces members to choose between expressing sincerely held beliefs and compliance.”
The ruling supports advocacy of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), which submitted a letter to the EEOC in October 2023 urging the agency not to define abortion as a pregnancy-related condition in guidance for the implementation of PWFA, a 2022 bipartisan act which did not specifically include abortion per se, only pregnancy-related illnesses and conditions.
“The recent ruling by North Dakota U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ensures much-needed protection for thousands of individuals from violating their deeply held religious beliefs, but the ruling also points to a larger need for this harmful and illegal regulation to be permanently stopped,” ERLC Director of Public Policy Hannah Daniel told Baptist Press.
“The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was a bipartisan effort to come alongside pregnant mothers in the workplace, giving them accommodations needed to protect the health and safety of both these mothers and their babies through pregnancy,” Daniel said. “The EEOC’s wild interpretation of this law completely flouts congressional intent and infringes on the religious freedom of millions of Americans. The ERLC will continue to advocate for this rule to be repealed and for the PWFA to be implemented in accordance with congressional intent.”
The judge’s preliminary ruling impacts the 1,380-member CBA and 7,100 parishes in the Bismarck Diocese and remains in effect while the case works its way through the legal system, but does not settle the question nationally.
Traynor also blocked the EEOC from forcing the diocese “to speak or communicate in favor of abortion, fertility treatments or gender transition when such is contrary to the Catholic faith; refrain from speaking or communicating against the same when such is contrary to the Catholic faith, use pronouns inconsistent with a person’s biological sex; or allow persons to use private spaces reserved for the opposite sex.”
In other cases regarding the rule, a federal judge in June blocked the rule’s enforcement in Louisiana and Mississippi; but a group of 17 states failed in its challenge to the rule and is appealing in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court. That appeal is expected to be heard Oct. 1, Reuters reported.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)
