In June 2022, in a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, landmark decisions which held that the U.S. Constitution protected a right to abortion prior to fetal viability. The Court's decision in Dobbs opened the door for states to ban abortion outright. Overnight, about 64 million American women of childbearing age potentially lost the right to decide what happens in their own bodies. In the year since the decision, thirteen states have made most or all abortions illegal, with the fight over abortion still taking place in eleven states, where abortion bans are blocked by court injunctions. Most of these laws impose criminal penalties on clinicians who provide abortions, and some extend penalties to people who help women who seek to terminate pregnancies.Experts across fields are now exploring the decision's effects on health (particularly the health of marginalized women and pregnant people), economic security, medical privacy, the patient-physician relationship, access to assisted reproduction, marriage equality and other LGBT+ rights, constitutional sex equality, disability rights, and medical research. Less attention has been given to the impact of Dobbs on employment law and women workers. Besides the obvious work disruptions that are likely to occur for workers who may need abortions and live in states criminalizing abortion, many other questions relevant to the workplace are raised by the Court's decision to overturn half a century of legal precedents protecting women's rights. To fill this gap, this Article examines the post-Dobbs landscape in which workers' reproductive experiences and capacities may be used to justify employment discrimination.Part I provides the scientific and legal landscape upon which this Article's arguments rest. It comes in two subparts. Specifically, Part I.A. reviews the current medical, psychological, and sociological understandings of abortion, infertility, and miscarriage, including their definitions, prevalence, risk factors, and broader health and societal impacts. This subpart also examines the blurry line between these common reproductive experiences. Part I.B. examines the federal employment statutes protecting pregnant (and potentially pregnant) workers from employment discrimination and unsafe work conditions, including the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA), Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (as amended by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) ), and the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act). As the critical appraisal in Part I.B. demonstrates, courts and agencies have refused to interpret these statutes in obvious and reasonable ways to provide meaningful equality to workers when their reproductive experiences impact their wage work, including the experiences of abortion, infertility treatment, and miscarriage.Part II then explores some of the unique cultural and legal barriers that render federal employment law particularly ineffective in dealing with workers who experience abortion, infertility, and miscarriage. It examines the mismatch between the culture of secrecy and privacy surrounding these reproductive events and statutory provisions and judicial interpretations requiring employees to share private health information as a precondition to receiving the protection of federal employment discrimination law. This Part also examines how insufficient retaliation protections in employment law frustrate employees' ability to benefit from what little protection exist for these reproductive events under federal employment discrimination laws. Finally, Part II explores how increased criminalization of abortion in the wake of Dobbs is likely to exacerbate these cultural and legal conditions that render federal employment law particularly ineffective in this realm.Part III turns to solutions, inviting introspection and regulatory shifts to include the full spectrum of a person's reproductive life in mainstream employment law. Among other reforms, Part III examines the recently-passed Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), a new federal law providing a basic right to reasonable workplace accommodations for normal pregnancy and related medical conditions. The PWFA is a significant victory for pregnant workers and women's rights. It is a hard-won victory after a ten-year fight in the courts and Congress to restore the PDA to its original purpose. With the passage of the PWFA, pregnant workers may now access the same reasonable, temporary accommodations as non-pregnant, temporarily-disabled workers. But, as Part III argues, the PWFA does not go far enough to address the particular challenges presented by abortion, infertility, and miscarriage for American workers. In particular, it does not provide privacy or retaliation protections necessary for workers to meaningfully access reasonable accommodations in a legal landscape where a miscarriage may be prosecuted as a failed self-managed abortion. Nor does the PWFA in any way address the reproductive health risks presented by wage work for many marginalized workers in our country. More sweeping and fundamental reforms addressing work and reproductive justice are needed. Part III therefore concludes by offering such a transformative agenda, including enhanced antiretaliation and privacy protection for employees' medical information, paid family and medical leave, a national right to paid sick leave, and occupational safety standards that would address the reproductive health risks faced by pregnant and potentially workers
