On the recordSeptember 17, 2020
I thank the chairman for yielding. I rise in opposition to this political poison pill of an MTR. Corporations are a legal creation. They don't have religious beliefs. Their officers might, but they do not. Let's be clear about who inspired the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. It is women who have asked for accommodations in lifting requirements because their doctors told them they were at high risk of miscarriage or preterm birth. It is women like the worker in Pennsylvania who was denied a schedule change and fired due to cramping in her uterus that landed her in the ER. This MTR invites discrimination. It emboldens those who would use religion as a basis to discriminate against people who are pregnant and not married, workers in same-sex couples, women who used IVF to get pregnant, even people with partners of a different race. Something the proponents of this amendment aren't saying out loud is that other religious exemptions would already apply to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. This MTR frustrates the purpose of a good bill, a bill that is supported by the Chamber of Commerce and by 89 percent of voters. Every year, an estimated quarter of a million women are denied requests for an accommodation because current law forces pregnant workers to find other nonpregnant employees who received similar accommodations to make a case. When pregnant women are denied accommodations, they face health risks, miscarriage, premature births.…





