Dive Brief:
- Altering the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to remove protections for workers undergoing fertility treatments could cause employers to unlawfully deny accommodation requests, a group of Democratic senators wrote to EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas in an open letter Monday.
- The senators wrote in response to Lucas’ statements last year and the agency’s formation of a quorum last October, which puts Lucas “in a position to initiate the required notice-and-comment process to change the rule.”
- The letter also outlined the senators’ view that this EEOC proposal would be in direct opposition to President Donald Trump’s stated pro-fertility agenda.
Dive Insight:
The letter addresses EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’ condemnation of the EEOC’s PWFA final rule, which was solidified in April 2024. Lucas has been “vocal in her opposition” to certain parts of the final rule, the agency said in a previously released statement.
“Specifically, the Acting Chair does not agree with the Commission’s interpretation of the phrase ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions’ and the contrivances the Commission used to arrive at its construction of the statute,” EEOC continued, adding that Lucas believes “the rule fundamentally erred in conflating pregnancy and childbirth accommodation with accommodation of the female sex, that is, female biology and reproduction.”
HR Dive reached out to Lucas for comment and did not hear back by the time of publication.
According to the Democrats who signed the open letter, Lucas’ position is at odds with Trump’s fertility-related agenda. In August 2024, after the PWFA final rule and before he took office once more, Trump said he would champion in vitro fertilization, either through securing public funding or mandating that insurance companies cover IVF.
In February 2025, Trump issued an executive order aimed at expanding IVF access. The following month, during a Women’s History Month event, Trump even called himself the “fertilization president.” He later went on to trumpet his work with pharmaceutical manufacturers to lower IVF drug prices and with agencies to incentivize employers to offer IVF benefits.
However, in this week’s open letter, the Democrats characterized this administration’s implementation of the executive order as “weak,” noting the lowered prices only apply to a “narrow subset of drugs” and the fertility benefits were “little more than a voluntary invitation to employers to offer benefits if they want to.”
Modifying the PWFA’s final rule would further “break President Trump’s promise, making it more likely that employers could deny accommodations to workers undergoing fertility treatment — or force them to work in conditions that could undermine their health or their treatment’s success.”
The letter noted the “intensive medical processes” required for IVF treatment, including daily needle injections of medications with potentially strong side effects; frequent fertility clinic visits; and procedures that don’t allow for flexible scheduling, like egg retrieval and embryo transfer.
“The current regulation explicitly protects the right of workers undergoing IVF to request reasonable accommodations like short breaks to take medication, a schedule that accommodates daily monitoring appointments and medical procedures, or even access to a chair,” the senators wrote.
The PWFA remains crucial in protecting pregnant and expecting workers, as well as new parents. Attorneys have affirmed this law’s importance, underscoring the ways the PWFA fills in gaps left by the FMLA or Family Medical Leave Act.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and 14 others signed the letter on Monday.