Category: 2023 News

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Biden administration has drawn criticism for its inclusion of abortion in a proposed rule for a bipartisan law guaranteeing protections for pregnant workers that had the support of Catholic, pro-life and Republican leaders.

The bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was passed by Congress Dec. 27, 2022, signed into law by President Joe Biden Dec. 29 and went into effect in June. The law prohibits employment practices that discriminate against making reasonable accommodations for qualified employees due to their pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.

A rule proposed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Aug. 7 governing the implementation of that law contains broad language including abortion among “related medical conditions,” and the potential circumstances for which employers may have to grant workplace accommodations, which can include time off or additional rest breaks.

In a statement, EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows said the new law “is a step forward for workers, families and the economy. This important new civil rights law promotes the economic security and health of pregnant and postpartum workers by providing them with access to support on the job to keep working, which helps employers retain critical talent.”

Burrows said the EEOC welcomed the public “to provide meaningful feedback about how the proposal would impact workplaces and ways to assist employers and workers in understanding the law.”

The rule defines “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” as inclusive of “current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation (including breastfeeding and pumping), use of birth control, menstruation, infertility and fertility treatments, endometriosis, miscarriage, stillbirth, or having or choosing not to have an abortion, among other conditions.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a medical doctor who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and worked to pass the legislation with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said in a statement the Biden administration “has gone rogue.”

“These regulations completely disregard legislative intent and attempt to rewrite the law by regulation,” Cassidy said. “The Biden administration has to enforce the law as passed by Congress, not how they wish it was passed. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is aimed at assisting pregnant mothers who remain in the workforce by choice or necessity as they bring their child to term and recover after childbirth. The decision to disregard the legislative process to inject a political abortion agenda is illegal and deeply concerning.”

Many pro-life advocates, including the U.S. bishops, supported the legislation, but criticized the proposed regulation.

In a statement, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said the bishops supported the bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act “because it enhanced the protection of pregnant mothers and their preborn children, which is something that we have encouraged Congress to prioritize.”

“The Act is pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-life,” Bishop Burbidge said. “It is a total distortion to use this law as a means for advancing abortion, and the complete opposite of needed assistance for pregnant mothers.”

Bishop Burbidge said the EEOC’s proposed interpretation of the legislation to “include accommodations for obtaining an abortion is wrong and contrary to the text, legislative history, and purpose of the Act, which is to help make it possible for working mothers to remain gainfully employed, if desired, while protecting their health and that of their preborn children.”

“We are hopeful that the EEOC will be forced to abandon its untenable position when public comments submitted on this regulation demonstrate that its interpretation would be struck down in court,” he said.

In a statement, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said “Congress sought to help pregnant workers, not force employers to facilitate abortions.”

“The Biden administration is hijacking a bipartisan law that doesn’t even mention abortion to forcibly require every employer in America to provide ‘reasonable accommodations’ for their workers’ elective abortions,” Blake said. “The administration’s unlawful proposal violates state laws protecting the unborn and employers’ pro-life and religious beliefs. The administration doesn’t have the legal authority to smuggle an abortion mandate into a transformational pro-life, pro-woman law. Alliance Defending Freedom stands ready to continue defending unborn lives and to oppose this egregious federal overreach.”

EEOC said the rule will be published for public comment in the Federal Register Aug. 11. Members of the public wishing to comment on the proposal will have 60 days from the date of publication to do so by visiting regulations.gov.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Signaling the Vatican’s growing engagement in efforts to ensure the ethical development of new technologies, the Vatican has announced that “Artificial Intelligence and Peace” will be the theme for the next World Day of Peace, which is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2024.

“The remarkable advances made in the field of artificial intelligence are having a rapidly increasing impact on human activity, personal and social life, politics and the economy,” the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development said in a statement released Aug. 8.

“Pope Francis calls for an open dialogue on the meaning of these new technologies, endowed with disruptive possibilities and ambivalent effects,” the statement said.

The pope, it continued, “recalls the need to be vigilant and to work so that a logic of violence and discrimination does not take root in the production and use of such devices, at the expense of the most fragile and excluded; injustice and inequalities fuel conflicts and antagonisms.”

The World Day of Peace was inaugurated by St. Paul VI in 1968 and is celebrated every Jan. 1, the feast of Mary, Mother of God. In recent editions, Pope Francis has used the world day to call for inclusive ways of overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, creating dialogue between generations, promoting a culture of care and ecological conversion.

In March, the pope met with tech industry leaders, ethicists and theologians at the Vatican to consider the ethical development of AI, and in January he addressed industry leaders from companies such as Microsoft and IBM as well as members of the Jewish and Muslim communities during a Vatican conference on ethics in AI.

At the end of the conference, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim representatives signed a declaration calling on AI researchers to engage with ethicists and religious leaders to develop a framework for the ethical use of AI.

The Vatican’s Aug. 8 statement underscored that “the urgent need to orient the concept and use of artificial intelligence in a responsible way, so that it may be at the service of humanity and the protection of our common home, requires that ethical reflection be extended to the sphere of education and law.”

It added that human dignity and a concern for fraternity are “indispensable conditions for technological development to help contribute to the promotion of justice and peace in the world.”

In an interview with the Spanish magazine Vida Nueva released Aug. 5, the pope said, “All these issues of Artificial Intelligence go over my head because of the complexity they are reaching,” but said he is being “guided” by officials and experts working with the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

Yet, he added that “new technologies have great potential; they are a gift from God and can give good fruits, but they need to have heart, they need to be humanized.”

LISBON, Portugal (CNS) – World Youth Day is returning to Asia in 2027 and will be hosted in Seoul, South Korea.

Pope Francis announced the location Aug. 6 to some 1.5 million pilgrims who attended the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon.

“The next World Youth Day will take place in Asia. It will be in South Korea, in Seoul,” he said to cheers from the estimated 1,000 South Korean pilgrims, many of them proudly waving their country’s flag.

“In 2027, from the western border of Europe, (World Youth Day) will move to the Far East, and this is a beautiful sign of the universality of the church and the dream of unity of which you are witnesses,” the pope said.

Pope Francis prefaced his announcement by urging young people to travel to Rome in 2025 to participate in youth celebrations during the jubilee year, when Vatican officials expect more than 30 million pilgrims to flock to the Eternal City.

The pope’s decision marks the second time the international gathering of young people will take place in Asia. In 1995, an estimated 5 million people attended World Youth Day in Manila, Philippines, with St. John Paul II.

Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul said at a news conference Aug. 6 that while it is unrealistic to expect millions to participate in Seoul’s World Youth Day, he anticipates many young foreigners — Catholics and not — will come to South Korea for the event drawn by their many cultural offerings, including K-pop, the popular Korean music.

Archbishop Chung said he hoped to achieve similar participation numbers as World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney — about 300,000 — which also involved a significant number of foreigners traveling to the country.

“World Youth Day is not just a Catholic event, it is a global celebration and a platform for interreligious encounters,” he said speaking through a translator. He also acknowledged the “immense challenge” of welcoming young people around the world to Seoul but said that South Korea is a highly efficient country capable of hosting the event.

The archbishop said the next World Youth Day “aspires to become a radiant beacon of unity embracing the rich culture of East Asia.”

The event would be the first time World Youth Day is held in a Christian-minority country. Catholics make up an estimated 11% of the country’s population — about 5.7 million people — according to a 2020 report from the Korean bishops’ conference.

Pope Francis traveled to South Korea in 2014 to beatify 124 Korean martyrs at a ceremony in Seoul.