In a victory for religious freedom, a federal judge has canceled a Joe Biden-era Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rule that forced businesses to bow to the radical abortion agenda.
The rule, cooked up by Biden’s cronies at the EEOC, demanded employers provide abortion-related leave and other practices that trampled the deeply held beliefs of countless business owners, especially Catholics.
Judge Daniel Traynor, serving on the District Court of North Dakota and appointed by President Trump, delivered the knockout blow to Biden’s scheme, ruling that 9,000 Catholic businesses no longer have to comply with the outrageous mandate.
Last year, Judge Traynor issued a preliminary injunction, which he has now made permanent.
In his ruling, Traynor slammed the Biden administration, stating, “The law forces members to choose between expressing sincerely held beliefs and compliance. This harm is irreparable, and upholding constitutional rights always weighs in favor of the public interest.”
The Washington Stand exposed how Biden’s EEOC twisted the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) into a pro-abortion weapon, redefining “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” to include everything from abortion to birth control and fertility treatments—moves that spit in the face of Catholic teachings.
Biden’s team didn’t just stop at promoting abortion; they went full-throttle, claiming the law covered “current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation, use of birth control, menstruation, infertility treatments, endometriosis, miscarriage, stillbirth, or having or choosing not to have an abortion.”
In 2023, the EEOC under President Biden issued new regulations effectively rewriting the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to include abortion. The actual language of the PWFA requires protections for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” The EEOC rule dramatically expanded this language to include “current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation (including breastfeeding and pumping), use of birth control, menstruation, infertility and fertility treatments, endometriosis, miscarriage, stillbirth, or having or choosing not to have an abortion, among other conditions.”
The inclusion of abortion effectively reversed the pro-life effect of the law, and the explicit inclusion of fertility treatments also ran afoul of the religious convictions of some Catholics.
The Catholic Diocese of Bismarck and the Catholic Benefits Association, representing 9,000 Catholic businesses argued that the rule violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
According to Catholic Votes, the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA) hailed the decision as “a huge win” sharing in a press release that the court “granted permanent protection from the EEOC’s efforts to force Catholic employers and others to accommodate abortion, IVF, or surrogacy, and to eliminate single-sex spaces and adopt preferred pronouns.”
Doug Wilson, CBA’s CEO explained, “The fact that we have had to sue the government five times and won every single time clearly illustrates both the strength of our legal strategy and the misguided ideological nature of the efforts to undermine our faith-driven ministries.”
“This victory vindicates the rights of our over 9,000 members to pursue their ministries in service to others, according to our faith.”
Wilson added, “Guided by their Catholic faith, our members contribute innumerable hours and resources in service to society every year, out of love for Jesus Christ and our fellow man.”
“This ruling lets us continue to serve without the threat of the EEOC persecuting us for following our faith.”
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