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The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was supposed to ensure women got the support and time off they needed to prepare for and welcome a new baby — not to kill the baby.
Just before it nuked Title IX redefining the biological meaning of sex in schools and college campuses, the Biden administration instituted another radical regulation, this one distorting the meaning of a law that protects pregnant women in order to promote abortion.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) which was passed in 2021, requires employers to “provide reasonable accommodations to a qualified employee’s or applicant’s known limitations related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) instead took that reasonable pro-life and pro-family measure and turned it into a Trojan Horse for baby murder.
As seen in the final rule that the EEOC published on April 19 announcing its interpretive guidance on the legislation, the federal agency decided that abortion falls under “Pregnancy, Childbirth, or Related Medical Conditions.”
In short, this new rule means that elective abortion is now considered a “related medical condition” to pregnancy and, as such, businesses could now be forced to “accommodate” women planning to abort their unborn children.
Some have pointed out the irony in using legislation meant to protect pregnant women to end the very pregnancies that the bill is supposed to facilitate.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., for example, stated:
“Adding this controversial provision into the PWFA is wrong. Period. Abortion is not a medical condition related to pregnancy; it is the opposite. Leave it to the Biden administration to think terminating a pregnancy and ending the life of an unborn child addresses the needs of pregnant workers.”
She’s right. Using the PWFA to aid baby murder is a perverse, painful irony.
But what else should we expect from the pro-abortion movement, which cloaks the horrors of abortion within the clinical-sounding euphemism of “reproductive healthcare?”
Those who repeat the lie that “abortion is healthcare” should consider the many health risks that come with the procedure — besides, of course, the murder of an innocent infant. Such risks include physical complications such as infection, blood clots, organ damage, loss of fertility and death, along with mental health complications, including high rates of depression and thoughts of suicide.
Yet this new rule only reinforces this dangerous fiction that abortion somehow provides vital medical care for women while also butchering the spirit of the PWFA.
The new regulation might seem like no big deal. After all, it merely requires that employers step out of the way and allow their female workers to get abortions — some time off, but nothing drastic like forcing Christian business owners to actually fund the ending of an unborn life, right?
But the EEOC’s twisted interpretation of the legislation still violates religious liberty. Forcing an employer to grant “accommodation” — however small — to what Christians rightly view as murder, as the ending of a defenseless human life, is already a step too far.
Sure, the EEOC said it would “consider religious objections to providing abortion accommodations on a case-by-case basis.” But it is hard to believe that Christians with religious objections will find much sympathy under an administration that touts its “achievements” in its perfervid “fight for reproductive freedom.”
And it is easy to imagine Christian employers getting targeted with reputational hit jobs and threats of lawsuits for supposed discrimination against female employees wanting to get an abortion.
Such radical changes would normally be passed by Congress though the legislative process, with all the attendant debate and media spotlight. But it is much easier to have a federal agency change a rule than to get 535 factional members of Congress to agree on something, thereby outflanking the pesky issue of public opinion.
The EEOC itself admitted how divisive the measure is, stating that it “received approximately 54,000 comments…urging the Commission to exclude abortion from the definition of ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.’ The Commission also received approximately 40,000 comments…supporting the inclusion of abortion in the definition of ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.’”
Putting aside the fact that the pro-life comments outnumbered the pro-abortion comments, the polarized nature of the public opinions the EEOC received demonstrates that such a divisive issue should not be left in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.
The right to life is sacred and enshrined in the Bible — including unborn life. David rejoices that God “formed my inward parts; [He] knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13), and the Prophet Isaiah states that “the LORD, your Redeemer . . . formed you from the womb” (Isaiah 44:24).
The Psalmist also delivers a rebuke for those who pass unjust edicts: “Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute? They band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death” (Psalm 94:20-21).
The EEOC’s new regulation is undoubtedly a wicked, unjust statute. It not only enables the murder of precious human life formed in the womb by God but it also forces Christians who deeply hold to such verses to either violate their conscience — or potentially lose their business.
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