IMHO - no I am sorry WTF?
The Trump appointed courts in recent rulings have stood on the precedent: "The Plaintiffs have not been harmed by the particular law in question there for the law stands"
As I am reading this issue: An employee of this, or any, anti-abortion clinic is being fired from their job because they have had an abortion. On the grounds that they have insulted the morals of the employer.
IMHO - this is BS. The employer has suffered absolutely no damage from the employees actions. And there for has no grounds to discriminate against this employee. For what should be an entirely private and concealed matter between the employee and her physician.
The issue that the employer has suffered a restriction on their 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech is completely False because the employee's actions have zero consequence on the employer's speech. Further the employer suffers absolutely no damage what so ever from the employment of an individual who has had an abortion when that individual performs the job duties requested of the employer. It is plainly as discriminatory as a lunch counter in Mississippi refusing to serve a Black individual because they are Black.
Feb 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday revived an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center's challenge to a New York state law that prohibits retaliation against employees for getting abortions or making other reproductive health decisions.
A panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state law violates Evergreen Association Inc's constitutional right to freedom of association by forcing the nonprofit, which counsels patients against getting abortions, to employ people who go against its message.
The 2019 law makes it illegal to discriminate or retaliate against workers because of their "reproductive health decision making." New York City adopted a similar law in 2018.
Evergreen, which does business as Expectant Mother Care, operates numerous pregnancy counseling centers in New York City and its suburbs. The group sued in 2020 to block the state from enforcing the law against it.
"Evergreen's beliefs about the morality of abortion are its defining values; forcing it to accept as members those who engage in or approve of that conduct would cause the group as it currently identifies itself to cease to exist," Circuit Judge Steven Menashi wrote.Menashi and the two other judges on the panel are appointees of Republican former President Donald Trump.
The court sent the case back to a federal judge in Syracuse, New York, for further proceedings.
The panel affirmed the judge's dismissal of Evergreen's other claims, including that the law violates its rights to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion.
The New York Attorney General's office and lawyers for Evergreen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Along the same lines this ruling from the U.S. Labor Dept.
Feb 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Tuesday withdrew a rule adopted in the last days of the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump that had expanded a religious exemption from anti-discrimination laws for federal contractors.
The department's rescission of the 2021 rule, which had been criticized by civil rights groups, restores a previous, narrower exemption that allows churches and their affiliates to only hire members of their religion.
The Trump-era rule had broadened the exemption to cover any employers who "hold themselves out to the public as carrying out a religious purpose," rather than only organizations with an explicitly religious mission.
The Trump administration framed the rule as a necessary step to ensure the full participation of religious organizations in the federal contractor system.
The federal government spent about $650 billion on federal contracts in fiscal year 2021.But critics of the rule, including LGBTQ advocacy groups, warned that it would open the door to discrimination based on race, sex, and other protected traits. In 2014, the Labor Department banned contractors from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Jenny Yang, the director of the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, in a statement said withdrawing the rule would ensure that the exemption is "applied to the facts and circumstances of each contractor."
The withdrawal of the rule was opposed by religious advocacy groups, some religious colleges and universities, and many Republicans in Congress.
In public comments, they said the Trump-era rule created a clearer standard that would encourage religious employers to become federal contractors and was more in line with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving religious liberty.
The Labor Department on Monday said the rule was actually out of step with those decisions, creating inconsistencies in the way courts and the department applied religious exemptions.
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