An abortion mandate on all employers in America

Public comment open, closes 10/10/2023

There are three stages of law when bad policy can be prevented: when the law is being written, when it is being implemented, and when it is being litigated — when handled by the legislative, executive, and judicial Branches, respectively.

It’s also worth noting that it’s not enough for a law not to be bad. These days lawmakers need to take extra precautions to ensure laws cannot be turned into bad policy.

Stage 1 — How we got here

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) has been in the works for several years. It had already gathered a history of potential red flags for religious liberty. Hitching a ride into law last year made for another missed opportunity to avoid bad law.

The text of the law itself never mentions abortion or any euphemism thereof. That isn’t stopping the Biden Administration from turning it into an abortion regulation. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To the Biden administration, every precious pregnancy looks like a potential abortion.

Stage 2 — Where we are now

The implementing regulation for PWFA specifically shoehorns abortion into the “related medical conditions” mentioned in the law among things that “relate to pregnancy or childbirth” or “arise out of pregnancy or childbirth”.

Rachel Morrison, director of the HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center offers additional background on the law, the proposed regulation and its potential consequences for women. CatholicVote has an explainer on how this proposed regulation could become a national abortion mandate threatening all pro-life employers and a campaign to facilitate public comment to stop this bad regulation.

The public comment period is still open, for another 17 days. 39,026 comments, as of this writing, have already been submitted (38.94k published so far). That’s another way of saying there is still plenty of room for additional important input from people who value life and see Pregnant Workers as women and children to be cherished and protected, not a “medical condition” to be eliminated for money.

Five things to know about making a public comment on agency rulemaking:

• What is a public comment?

• Why submit a public comment?

• What should be in a public comment?

• What should you know about public comments?

• How do you submit a public comment?

Even if brief, our efforts now could help avoid further damage of waiting until Stage 3 when the regulation for this law would be litigated in the courts. Comment by Tuesday, 10/10/2023.