BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has allowed more than 8,000 Catholic employers across the country to reject state rules protecting workers seeking abortion or fertility treatment.
In a strongly worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor of Bismarck, North Dakota, issued a preliminary injunction on Monday, ruling that the Catholic Benefits Association and the Diocese of Bismarck will likely be able to successfully prove that a final rule adopted in April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission violates their religious freedom. The rules are designed to enforce the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
The judge also prohibited the EEOC from forcing the diocese and association to comply with harassment rules designed to protect workers by writing “in a manner that compels them to advocate or communicate in favor of abortion, fertility treatments, or gender reassignment when doing so is contrary to the Catholic faith.” The ruling targeted transgender workers, who are prohibited from expressing parts of their gender identity.
“It is a precarious time for people of religious faith in America. It has been described as a post-Christian era,” Traynor wrote. “One indication of this grim assessment may be the repeated illegal and unconstitutional administrative actions against one of our country’s founding principles, the free exercise of religion.”
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act passed in December 2022 with broad bipartisan support. It was widely seen as a victory for women working in low-wage jobs who were routinely denied everything from time off for doctor’s appointments to the ability to sit or stand at work. But controversy arose when the EEOC took a broad view of conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth that required relief, including for abortion, fertility treatment, and contraception. While the rule makes an exception for religious employers, it says decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis.
But the judge, appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020, said the rule “forces members to choose between expressing sincerely held beliefs and complying with the rules” and would cause “irreparable” harm.
Martin Nussbaum, the association’s lead attorney, called the judge’s decision on Tuesday a victory that “respects the religious conscience of sincere Catholic employers.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Lawyers for the federal government had argued against a preliminary injunction, saying the plaintiffs’ case was “highly speculative” because they had not identified any enforcement actions or employees who had asked for accommodations that were denied to them. They also said the plaintiffs had no legal standing to challenge the regulations and could not show they were likely to succeed in the lawsuit. The judge rejected those arguments, saying, “It should not be necessary for the agency to bring a lawsuit to stop violating Americans’ constitutional rights.”
In vitro fertilization became a political flashpoint earlier this year when the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling in a wrongful death case that equated frozen embryos with children. Major IVF providers stopped operating in the state until the Republican-dominated state government passed a law offering some legal protection.
Last month, Trump said he would make IVF treatment free if re-elected, but did not detail how he would fund his plan or exactly how it would work. This month, Republicans blocked a bill that would establish a nationwide right to IVF, drawing criticism from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
“This particular case is part of a much broader attack on women’s rights and reproductive freedom,” said Inimai Chettiar, president of the legal group A Better Balance, which led a decades-long campaign for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Neither the law nor EEOC regulations require employers to pay for abortions or IVF – they simply require that workers be able to take time off for them, she said. “It doesn’t impose such a burdensome obligation on them.”
The Diocese of Bismarck and the Catholic Benefits Association filed the lawsuit in July. The association, which provides health and other benefits through Catholic employers, counts 85 dioceses and archdioceses among its members, totaling more than 1,380 employers and 7,100 parishes across the country, according to the lawsuit. Those members also include religious orders, schools, charities, colleges and hospitals, as well as Catholic businesses. The association says it covers 162,000 workers enrolled in members’ health plans.
Traynor has close ties to Catholic and conservative groups. He served on the board of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s Catholic bishops, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire for judicial candidates. He also reported his membership in two conservative legal groups, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and the St. Thomas More Society of North Dakota. In March, he blocked the administration from enforcing key federal laws and related regulations requiring a Christian employer organization to provide insurance coverage for sex-reassignment surgery, counseling and other treatments.
Monday’s decision followed a ruling by a federal judge in Louisiana in July that granted a preliminary injunction in two similar lawsuits filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic University and two dioceses. The cases differ because the North Dakota lawsuit also specifically challenged protections for fertility treatments, not just abortions, said Leila Abolfazli, director of national abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center.
In practice, Abolfazli said, denying time off for fertility treatments could mean the difference between a worker becoming pregnant or not. While the ruling only applies to the Catholic groups, it is one of several lawsuits that threaten to “undermine the law bit by bit” as a whole, she said.
Sharita Gruberg, vice president for economic justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families, expressed concern about a “general chilling effect” of this and other rulings that could prevent pregnant workers from feeling empowered to exercise their rights under the law.
“Religion is not a license to discriminate,” said Gillian Thomas, senior staff attorney for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. She said the ruling “marks a dangerous new low in the use of religion against civil rights.”
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Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski reported from Minneapolis. AP writers Alexandra Olson in New York, Claire Savage in Chicago and Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, also contributed to this story. Associated Press coverage of women in the workplace and state government receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. AP’s standards for working with charities, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas can be found at AP.org.
