After Friday the Supreme Court of the United States has taken the dramatic step of overturn the historic ruling Roe v. Wade of 1973which recognized the a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and legalized it nationally, some of them larger companies US have made your voice heard right away. A small but growing number of companies, including banks and tech giants, are adopting policies to offer benefits to US employees who may need access to abortion services. In most cases, the companies have stated that they will cover employee expenses if they have to travel for abortion services.
The sentence
“The Constitution does not refer to abortion and does not implicitly protect any similar right,” said Judge Samuel Alito in the 213-page “Dobbs v Mississippi” ruling.
The Court, in a sentence approved 6 to 3 thanks to the conservative majority, confirmed a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when many women are not even aware they are pregnant. The court’s three Democrats – Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – said the majority relegated women to “second-class citizenship”.
The companies offer to pay for abortion trips
Immediately after the decision, JPMorgan communicated to employees that would pay for their trips to states that allow legal abortionwhile Citigroup it had already begun to cover travel expenses for employees traveling out of state to have abortions due to new restrictions that took effect in Texas and elsewhere, becoming the first major US bank to make this commitment.
Among the companies that have communicated to their employees that they will cover travel expenses for an abortion are there Yelp, Amazon, Levi Strauss, Tesla, Starbucks, Netflix, Mastercard.
Disney told employees that she acknowledges the sentence’s impact on abortion but remains committed to providing one full access to quality healthcare, even for abortions. Meta (which controls Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) will reimburse travel expenses for employees seeking out-of-state reproductive care, but also claimed to be “evaluating the best way to do this given the legal complexities involved“. Companies that offer reimbursements for abortion-related travel may indeed be vulnerable to lawsuits from pro-life groups and Republican-led states and even to potential criminal penalties.
The big dilemma: what future?
L’the impact of the historic ruling will in any case be immediately transformative. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that advocates for abortion rights, 26 states will ban or likely ban nearly all abortions. Thirteen have so-called “trigger laws,” designed to automatically outlaw abortion as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned.
When faced with such issues, companies are in a “dilemma,” according to Doug Pinkham, president of the Public Affairs Council, a Washington-based group that advises companies on political engagement. On the one hand there is one ever younger and more educated workforce urging them to take sides on ethical and political issues, while on the other hand there is the risk of going against the legislators in the States where they do big business.
