Following a landmark ruling by the Supreme court of the US that overturned the constitutional right to abortions, the judgment makes its way for individual states to ban the procedure. Following a similar move, other firms such as Amazon also announced the same.
But after the ruling made its way to the Americans, quite a many companies have given their word to cover travel costs through their health insurance places for employees who have to leave their home state to get an abortion.
Biggest entertainment company Disney declared that it let its employees know that the company recognized the impact of the Supreme Court ruling and remained to its word of giving them “comprehensive access” to afford healthcare. This, “no matter where they live”.
Almost around 80,000 people are employed at Disney at its resort in Florida, wherein the law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy was already signed by the governor, which is now scheduled to take effect on July 1st.
JP Morgan, a banking giant, also assured and told its US employees it would cover the cost of travel expenses that would be required for medical services. This includes “legal abortions”, reported according to a staff memo, seen by Reuters news agency dated 1 June.
On Friday a bank spokeswoman said, “We are focused on the health and well-being of our employees and want to ensure equitable access to all benefits”. Goldman Sachs, another leading US investment bank shared that they would cover all the travel journey expenses for their employees who have a need to go to another state for the reason of getting an abortion from 1 July, as reported by Reuters.
Meta, the social media company said that they as well intended to reimburse travel expenses, “for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care”. A spokesperson added to this, “we are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved”.
Taking similar steps, other companies have chipped in doing their bit to support their employees in ways that could help them out. Among such companies taking small steps are Vogue publisher Conde Nast, ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber, and jeans brand Levi Strauss.
The company Lyft also added that they would legally protect drivers in abortion cases. To this, a spokesperson added saying, “no driver should have to ask a rider where they are going and why”.
Companies including Amazon, banking giant Citigroup and review website Yelp, all had already mentioned before the supreme court ruling that regardless of anything, they would reimburse their employees traveling to circumvent local abortion restrictions.
Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s chief executive said on Twitter that the courts made a decision that “puts the health of women in grave jeopardy”. Further, he added that “business leaders should speak out regarding the same”.
Coming into effect after the Roe V Wade case was overturned, to outlaw abortion, a total of 13 states have now already passed “trigger laws”.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost more than 20 states are going out of their way to limit access.
Companies on the other hand that are now offering to cover the cost of traveling to another state for the abortion procedure are said to face certain backlash from anti-abortion republicans sooner or later.
Roe v Wade: US firms pledge to pay staff travel expenses for abortions
