Prenatal Exposure to Fetally Toxic Work Environments: The Dilemma of the 1978 Pregnancy Amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
![handle is hein.journals/ilr66 and id is 83 raw text is: Prenatal Exposure to Fetally Toxic Work
Environments: The Dilemma of the 1978
Pregnancy Amendment to Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Hannah Arterian Furnish*
Table of Contents
I. Introduction ...................................... 64
II. The Fetally Toxic Work Environment ................. 66
A. Scope of the Problem ......................... 66
B. The Occupational Safety and Health Act
[OSHA] -A Nonsolution to the Problem ......... 67
1. OSHA Protection of the Unborn ............ 67
2. The Lead Standard as an Illustration of the
Inadequacy of OSHA Protection ............ 70
III. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1978
Pregnancy Amendment ............................. 74
A. The 1978 Pregnancy Amendment-The Legislative
H istory ..................................... 77
B. The Problem of the Pregnancy Amendment and
Fetally Hazardous Work Environments .......... 83
IV. The Inadequacy of Non-Title VII Responses to the Prob-
lem of the Fetally Toxic Work Environment ............ 85
V. Protecting the Employer: Title VII Defenses ........... 87
A . Overview ................................... 87
B. The Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ)
D efense ..................................... 90
C. Applicability of the BFOQ Defense to Employer
Exclusions of Pregnant Employees to Protect Fetal
H ealth ..................................... 92
D. The Defense of Business Necessity ............... 95
*Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University College of Law. B.A. 1970,
Elmira College; J.D. 1973, University of Iowa. The author expresses her thanks to Lewis
Gruber, M.S. Biology, 1978, University of Arizona, J.D., 1981, Arizona State University,
who was chiefly responsible for the technical aspects of the Appendix.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ilr66&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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