On May 21, 2025, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to remove mandates in its Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) rules that provided reasonable accommodations to employees who underwent abortion procedures.
The PWFA requires covered employers to provide a “‘reasonable accommodation’ to a qualified employee’s or applicant’s known limitations related to, affected by, or arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an ‘undue hardship.’”
Previously, the EEOC considered an abortion to be a “related medical condition” to pregnancy, but Judge David C. Joseph of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana disagreed. Specifically, Joseph determined that the EEOC did not have authority to include abortion in its rule, because it was not explicitly covered by the PWFA, which Congress passed and went into effect on June 27, 2023.
Joseph’s ruling comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which determined that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. “Congress was well aware of the implications of Dobbs when it passed the PWFA, and had it wanted to include an abortion accommodation provision in the PWFA, it surely would have done so,” Joseph wrote.
Joseph also found that the EEOC’s rule involved the major questions doctrine, which prevents agencies, such as the EEOC, from regulating issues involving “vast economic and political significance” absent clear congressional directive. The “political, social, and religious significance of the abortion issue in this country” means the EEOC “must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the power it claims,” he also wrote.
Individuals who believe that they have been discriminated or retaliated against in the workplace should seek legal counsel to analyze their potential claims.