New York Fights Employer’s Effort to Invalidate ‘Boss Bill’

A New York law that prohibits employers from firing employees based on their private reproductive health decisions must be upheld because it doesn’t unconstitutionally interfere with employers’ expressive-association, speech, and religious rights, the state told a federal appeals court.

Labor Law Section 203-e—known as the “boss bill"—protects employees from retaliation and discrimination, the state said in a brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to affirm a lower court’s decision upholding the law.

It also furthers the state’s compelling interest in protecting employees’ privacy rights in their reproductive choices, the state said Wednesday. The law, moreover, ...