The mayor of Washington D.C. announced yesterday that the D.C. police, fire, and emergency medical services would no longer require female job applicants to take pregnancy tests as part of their physical, and will no longer refuse to hire pregnant women so long as they meet the physical requirements of the job (see September 5, 2001 WIT). This decision follows the filing of an EEOC complaint against the D.C. EMS on behalf of a female employee who, along with two other female EMS employees, claims that she was pressured into having an abortion to avoid losing her job. An attorney for the D.C. EMS union said that the mayor’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but that it does not change what was done to female employees and applicants in the past.
See "D.C. Pregnancy Test Requirement Dropped", ANDREW DeMILLO, The Washington Post, September 19, 2001