A new bill in the PA House could make it more difficult for employers to discriminate against pregnant workers.

Last week, Pennsylvania House Bill 1892, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, was introduced to the legislature as part of the state's women's health initiative and in recognition of the 35th anniversary of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA). 

Yet 35 years later, women continue to suffer economically in the short and long term due to pregnancy. Last week, Mother Jones reported that a teacher was filing suit against a Montana school that fired her after discovering her pregnancy. 

While the PDA criminalized discrimination against pregnant women and mothers in 1978, HB 1892 will go even further and make it illegal for a covered employee to refuse to accommodate a woman's pregnancy, unless it constitutes an "undue hardship" for operations.

In the United States, two out of three minimum wage workers are women. That means that women are less likely to have health benefits, flexible hours, living wages and maternity leave, putting pregnant women at a greater risk of working through unsuitable conditions and not taking time to access proper health care. 

"In the majority of cases, the accommodations women need are minor," the bill's sponsor Rep. Mark Painter wrote in a House memorandum, including examples such as permission to sit, carry water or request help for heavy lifting.

The memo also emphasized the effect that pregnancy discrimination has on a family's economic stability and the widening of society's gender wage gap.