Quick Hits

• The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana vacated the EEOC’s final rule interpreting the PWFA to require elective abortion-related accommodations and removing abortion from the definition of a pregnancy-related medical condition.
• The ruling tracks a prior preliminary injunction ruling that found the EEOC exceeded its authority and evidence of congressional intent for the PWFA to apply to elective abortion lacking.

U.S. District Judge David Joseph, a Trump appointee, found that the EEOC exceeded its statutory authority by including the “abortion accommodation mandate” in the April 2024 final rule and violated the “major questions doctrine,” which requires clear congressional authorization for agency actions of significant economic and political importance.

The court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, vacating the “abortion accommodation mandate” and sent the rule back to the EEOC to revise it and any implementing regulations or guidance, accordingly.

“[T]he record before the Court clearly establishes that the EEOC has exceeded its statutory authority to implement the PWFA and, in doing so, both unlawfully expropriated the authority of Congress and encroached upon the sovereignty of the Plaintiff States under basic principles of federalism,” Judge Joseph said in the decision.

The ruling comes in consolidated litigation filed by the states of Louisiana and Mississippi and a group of four Catholic organizations led by the...

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