On Tuesday the ACLU of Arkansas announced it is leading a coalition of pro-abortion groups supporting a new Biden Administration rule in federal court.
In April, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin led a 17-state coalition challenging the Biden Administration’s new rule requiring employers to accommodate abortions under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) of 2022.
The PWFA is a federal law that helps ensure pregnant workers receive accommodations from their employers to protect them and their unborn children. However, the Biden Administration has reinterpreted the law to justify federal rules that support abortion.
The Biden Administration’s new pro-abortion rules threaten business owners with lawsuits if they do not accommodate employees’ abortions — even if the abortions would be illegal under state law.
The lawsuit over the rules is still playing out in federal court. However, the ACLU of Arkansas is co-leading an amicus brief supporting the Biden Administration’s rules.
In a statement, the ACLU of Arkansas said,
[A] broad coalition of labor, workers’ rights, and gender justice organizations — led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Arkansas, and the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) — filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) regulations implementing the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), including the regulations’ explicit protection for workers who have abortions.
It’s worth pointing out that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a bipartisan law that was supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including pro-life groups. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the law would advance its “goal of ensuring that no woman ever feels forced to choose between her future and the life of her child while protecting the conscience rights and religious freedoms of employers.” However, the Biden Administration is twisting this law to promote abortion.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Biden Administration has tried to use rules and regulations to support abortion.
After the U.S. Supreme Court released its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning Roe v. Wade, President Biden issued an executive order urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services to identify ways to use federal authority to expand abortion.
Since then, the administration has reinterpreted laws like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to support abortion.
We believe federal courts ultimately will recognize what the Biden Administration is doing and block this pro-abortion reinterpretation of federal law.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
