The bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act will include protections for abortion under new regulations from the Biden administration.

The law, meant to “[provide] for reasonable accommodations” for pregnant workers, is being interpreted to mean employers must support employees in getting an abortion by giving them leave from work.

Some pro-life groups had warned that the Biden administration would use the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to push for abortion. “Under the bill … pro-life groups can be sued if they don’t provide their employees special leave to get abortions,” Tom McClusky, CatholicVote’s director of government affairs, warned.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has supported the bill for years, writing in 2021 that it “will make the workplace a safer environment for nursing mothers, pregnant women, and their unborn children.”

Now the USCCB has responded to how the new regulations, as warned, will push for abortion.

“The bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, as written, is a pro-life law that protects the security and physical health of pregnant mothers and their preborn children,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend wrote. “It is indefensible for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to twist the law in a way that violates the consciences of pro-life employers by making them facilitate abortions. No employer should be forced to participate in an employee’s decision to end the life of their child.”

The law is a good example of our broken politics. There is a bipartisan consensus, or at least there was with this bill, about protecting pregnant workers in the workplace.

There are commonsense accommodations the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lays out for pregnant workers, such as working remotely, allowing more breaks, and changing duties to less physically demanding assignments.

But much like efforts to fight the Zika virus, coronavirus, and sex trafficking, the issue of abortion has infected an otherwise bipartisan issue.

Pregnant women deserve “reasonable accommodations” in the workplace to support them in a safe and healthy pregnancy. But abortion is not about having a safe and healthy pregnancy; it is about ending an innocent human life.

Pregnant women are worth protecting. Abortion is not.