The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is a U.S. federal law, passed in 1978, which made it illegal to discriminate against someone for employment purposes on the basis of pregnancy. The act amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include pregnancy and related conditions in the definition of sex discrimination.

Background

Before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin for employment decisions. This protection did not, however, extend to pregnant women, because pregnancy was not considered to be synonymous with being female.

The legal distinction between pregnancy discrimination and sex discrimination was determined upon the ruling of Geduldig v. Aiello, in which the ...

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