Judge shields thousands of Catholic employers from federal rules requiring time off for abortions and IVF treatment

By Tierney Sneed and Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge in North Dakota ruled Monday that the federal government cannot enforce new regulations mandating employers provide time off for abortion and fertility treatments against thousands of Catholic employers nationwide while their lawsuit challenging the regulations plays out.

More than 7,000 Catholic parishes and another 1,380 Catholic employers are covered by the new preliminary order by US District Judge Daniel Traynor, a Donald Trump appointee who sits in Bismarck.

The challengers, the Catholic Benefits Association and the Catholic Diocese in Bismarck, argued their religious rights were being infringed upon because the regulations would require them to accommodate employees’ efforts to obtain abortions or “immoral fertility treatments.”

Traynor’s order railed against the Biden administration’s approach to the new regulations, writing about “the danger of government action that is clearly anti-religion,” and asserting that it “should not take a legal challenge for the Agency to stop violating the constitutional rights of Americans.”

While at least one other judge has issued a preliminary ruling against the mandate for abortion accommodations, Traynor’s order was the first to reach the regulations requiring accommodations for fertility treatments, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Traynor additionally paused enforcement of the transgender protections in the new workplace regulations against the Catholic organizations challenging the rule.

In court filings, the Biden administration argued that the regulations – which the EEOC is implementing under a 2022 law called the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act – would not burden their religious or free speech rights. But Traynor concluded that at “the very least [the Catholic Benefits Association’s] actions would violate the retaliation provision because the employee would be fired for violating the Catholic faith by asking for an accommodation for the conduct at issue here.”

In a footnote, the judge wrote, “Unchecked government power creates martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and executed for expressing opposition to euthanasia and the persecution of Jews; Miguel Pro, arrested and eventually executed for violation of Mexico’s anti-Catholic Calles Law; and Thomas More, famous for being executed by the British king for the crime of not saying anything.”

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The ruling was earlier reported by LawDork.

The case is one of several legal challenges to the regulations that the EEOC created under the PWFA. Another judge, in a separate lawsuit brought in Louisiana, blocked enforcement of the abortion accommodation mandates against other Catholic entities, as well as in Louisiana and Mississippi.

On Tuesday, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which would oversee an appeal of Traynor’s ruling, is hearing arguments in a separate challenge to the abortion accommodation regulations that was brought by several Republican-led states. In that case, the trial judge rejected their challenge, finding that the states did not have the standing to bring the suit.

The EEOC rule was controversial from the start, leading the agency to stress that it does not require employers to pay for an abortion or provide paid time off for the procedure.

Finalized in mid-April, the rule mandates that most employers offer “reasonable accommodations” to workers related to pregnancy or childbirth, including providing time off for an abortion. Other protections under the law include time off for recovery from childbirth and prenatal or postnatal appointments as well as accommodations related to seating, light duty, breastfeeding and breaks for food, water and restroom needs.

The question of including abortion in the act’s definition of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” sparked a flurry of comments to the commission, with about 54,000 of them urging the commission to exclude abortion and about 40,000 comments asking to include it.

“With respect to abortion, the PWFA’s requirements are narrow and will likely concern only a request by a qualified employee for leave from work,” the commission said in an April statement.

The EEOC also included infertility and fertility treatments in the rule’s definition of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

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