{"id":33940,"date":"2025-04-18T19:08:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T19:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/?p=33940"},"modified":"2025-04-18T19:08:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T19:08:25","slug":"federal-judge-permanently-enjoins-eeoc-abortion-regulation-for-catholic-business-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/federal-judge-permanently-enjoins-eeoc-abortion-regulation-for-catholic-business-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Permanently Enjoins EEOC Abortion Regulation for Catholic Business Group"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Joshua Arnold, originally published April 17, 2025, The Washington Stand<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catholic businesses may not be forced to subsidize abortions or fertility treatments,\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0federal Judge Daniel Traynor, a Trump appointee to the District Court of North Dakota, on Tuesday. Traynor granted 9,000 Catholic businesses a permanent injunction against an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rule requiring employers to provide abortion-related leave and other practices contrary to these businesses\u2019 religious beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, the EEOC under President Biden\u00a0issued<\/a>\u00a0new regulations effectively rewriting the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to include abortion. The actual language of the PWFA requires protections for \u201cpregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.\u201d The EEOC rule dramatically expanded this language to include \u201ccurrent 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Catholic Diocese of Bismarck and the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA), which represents 9,000 Catholic businesses,\u00a0challenged<\/a>\u00a0the EEOC rule in federal court, claiming that it violated their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). On September 23, Judge Traynor\u00a0granted<\/a>\u00a0these groups a preliminary injunction, halting EEOC\u2019s enforcement of the rule against them while the lawsuit proceeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe CBA is likely to succeed on the merits of the RFRA violation claim because the law forces members to choose between expressing sincerely held beliefs and compliance,\u201d he\u00a0wrote<\/a>. \u201cThis harm is irreparable and upholding Constitutional rights always weighs in favor of the public interest and an injunction. The Agency should have known it would not be allowed to force individuals to violate sincerely held religious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Traynor\u00a0replaced<\/a>\u00a0the preliminary injunction with a permanent injunction, finding that the facts and evidence in the case had not changed since his previous ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The controversial EEOC has become mired in multiple lawsuits. Last April, a coalition of 17 state attorneys general\u00a0challenged<\/a>\u00a0the constitutionality of the rule. \u201cUnelected commissioners at the EEOC seek to hijack these new protections for pregnancies by requiring employers to accommodate elective abortions \u2014 something the Act clearly did not authorize,\u201d they declared. \u201cThe EEOC\u2019s rule constitutes an unconstitutional federal overreach that infringes on existing state laws and exceeds the scope of the agency\u2019s authority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana also\u00a0granted<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0preliminary injunction<\/a>\u00a0in a separate lawsuit brought by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire scenario serves as a reminder of the Biden administration\u2019s troubling record of anti-Catholic bias. As ironic as it may seem, political appointees of the nation\u2019s second Catholic president distorted the meaning of a pro-life law to require employers to subsidize abortion and other practices objectionable to Catholics. These actions were not only lawless but fruitless, as they provoked Catholics to challenge the rule in court, where they easily won. But what else could we expect from an administration whose suspicion of Catholics ran so deep that they\u00a0installed<\/a>\u00a0undercover agents in Catholic parishes to spy on their worship services?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not even the first time that the Biden administration\u2019s EEOC lost a health care-related court case to a Catholic group in North Dakota (that may seem overly specific, but the truth is often weirder than fiction). In 2023, the Eighth Circuit\u00a0affirmed<\/a>\u00a0a district court ruling that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the EEOC could not interpret \u201cantidiscrimination laws in a way that compels [religious entities] to perform and provide insurance coverage for gender transitions.\u201d After the adverse ruling (Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra), the Biden administration Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to appeal the matter further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a precarious time for people of religious faith in America. It has been described as a post-Christian age,\u201d Traynor\u00a0warned<\/a>. \u201cOne indication of this dire assessment may be the repeated illegal and unconstitutional administrative actions against one of the founding principles of our country, the free exercise of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For their part, North Dakota Catholics are just happy to preserve their free exercise of religion. \u201cThe Court has upheld our religious freedom rights and that is all we ever wanted,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Bismarck Bishop David Kagan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Joshua Arnold, originally published April 17, 2025, The Washington Stand Catholic businesses may not be forced to subsidize abortions or fertility treatments,\u00a0ruled\u00a0federal Judge Daniel Traynor, a Trump appointee to the District Court of North Dakota, on Tuesday. 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