From Live Action
By Nancy Flanders
There’s no better way to encourage abortion among one’s employees than to offer to pay for it, as well as the costs associated with traveling for that abortion. Recently, new pro-life laws have been enacted in several states, and there is hope that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, allowing for pro-life trigger laws to go into effect. This has pro-abortion companies scrambling for ways to ensure their employees in pro-life states still have the ability to have their undelivered children killed; after all, it’s cheaper for employers to pay for abortion expenses than maternity leave and health care for an employee’s new baby or babies.
Here are the companies that have pledged to reimburse employees for the costs associated with traveling out of state for an abortion:
STARBUCKS
Starbucks announced that it will pay the travel expenses for employees on its insurance plan who want to have an abortion and need to travel 100 miles or more from their home in order to obtain one. The offer extends to employees’ dependents who are also on the company’s health plan.
AMAZON
Amazon announced that it will cover up to $4,000 of its employees’ travel expenses for non-life-threatening medical procedures, including abortion. The policy is for both U.S. employees and any covered dependents, and was made retroactive to January 1, 2022.
“The ultimate ‘F U’ any boss can give their female employees: I will literally pay 4k for you to kill your child so I don’t need to pay for maternity leave & so you can work extra long hours for me,” Live Action founder and president Lila Rose tweeted. “Extraordinarily gross, @JeffBezos. @amazon”
CITIGROUP
The multi-national banking organization Citigroup has announced its plan to pay abortion-related travel expenses for employees. “In response to changes in reproductive health-care laws in certain states in the U.S., beginning in 2022 we provide travel benefits to facilitate access to adequate resources,” the company said in a filing for a shareholders’ meeting. The plan includes covering the cost of airfare and hotels. In response, lawmakers have called the House and Senate to terminate a contract with Citigroup.
YELP
The online platform Yelp has offered to pay travel expenses for its employees to undergo abortions. The company’s chief diversity officer, Miriam Warren, claimed women can’t be equal without abortion, which implies that mothers are not equal to men and that mothers are incapable of having true success outside of their families.
“We’ve long been a strong advocate for equality in the workplace, and believe that gender equality cannot be achieved if women’s healthcare rights are restricted,” she said. “As a remote-first company with a distributed workforce, this new benefit allows our U.S. employees and their dependents to have equitable access to reproductive care, regardless of where they live.” This implies that a Yelp employee in a state with expansive abortion access would have career benefits over a Yelp employee in a state without widespread abortion access.
UNITED TALENT AGENCY
United Talent Agency (UTA) has vowed to reimburse employees for travel-related expenses for abortion when abortion is not available in their state. UTA is a Hollywood talent agency, and the entertainment industry has a history of coercing actresses to abort. Countless actresses, from before Roe v. Wade was decided right up until recently, have been subjected to coerced abortions or pressure to abort in order to keep their jobs or succeed at all in Hollywood.
READ: Dating apps Bumble and Match to begin funding abortions
In a memo obtained by Variety, UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer called the company’s desire to cover travel expenses for abortion “an important new benefit.”
LEVI STRAUSS
Levi Strauss will reimburse the abortion-related travel expenses for its full and part-time employees. The apparel company said in a statement, “Given what is at stake, business leaders need to make their voices heard and act to protect the health and well-being of our employees. That means protecting reproductive rights.”
TESLA
Tesla, run by Elon Musk, began paying for its employees to undergo out-of-state abortions in 2021. It expanded its benefits program to include “travel and lodging support for those who may need to seek healthcare services that are unavailable in their home state.” Last year, Tesla moved from Silicon Valley to Texas, where anyone involved in carrying out an abortion after a preborn child has a detectable heartbeat can face a lawsuit, except for the mother.
Despite these company policies, Musk has called low birth rates one of the “biggest threats to civilization.”
SALESFORCE
Salesforce told employees that the company will either help them relocate if they live in a pro-life state or would cover the costs of traveling for an abortion. “If you have concerns about access to critical health care in your state, Salesforce will provide financial support for travel, available through our health care providers, and/or help relocate you and members of your immediate family,” said Brent Hyder, president and chief people officer, in a Slack message to employees.
Research suggests that the idea of long-distance travel for abortion can save lives. Women who are considering an abortion are more than twice as likely to delay it or keep their babies if they live 50 or more miles away from an abortion business compared with women who live within five miles of an abortion facility.
APPLE
Apple, which is expanding in Austin Texas with a new $1 billion, three-million-square-foot campus, told The Wall Street Journal that its health insurance policy includes coverage of abortions as well as travel expenses.
AMALGAMATED BANK
The largest union-owned bank in the U.S., Amalgamated Bank, said in a statement that it would pay the travel expenses “for employees and their dependents who need to travel out of state to access reproductive health care.” Those expenses can include airfare, gasoline, hotel fees, meal expenses, and up to five days of childcare expenses.
BUMBLE
Bumble announced on Twitter that it has a relief fund for Texas women so they can leave the state for an abortion. That money will cover the costs associated with abortion-related travel.
CHOBANI
Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said on Twitter that the company would alter its health plan to include coverage of transportation, lodging, and childcare for their employees and their employees’ dependents to travel for an abortion.
DOORDASH
The food delivery platform DoorDash announced it will cover certain travel-related expenses for employees and their dependents seeking an abortion when they live in pro-life states.
HIMS & HERS
Telehealth company Hims & Hers, which sells both over-the-counter and prescription meds, said it will provide “$6,000 in travel reimbursement and two weeks of leave for any employee and their partner who need to travel to a state that offers reproductive healthcare access.”
INTERPUBLIC GROUP, PUBLICIS GROUPE AND WPP
Three multinational communications and public relations firms have all said they will cover the costs related to any employee’s travel for abortion. WPP CEO Mark Read said, “We want our people to have the same health coverage regardless of where they live.”
LYFT
Lyft announced in April — following the enactment of the Texas Heartbeat Act in September — that it would expand benefits to include travel costs for U.S. employees who decide to travel more than 100 miles to have an abortion.
Match Group
According to Investopedia, Match Group released an eternal memo in the fall of 2021 in which CEO Shar Dubey said she set up a fund for workers who were affected by the Texas Heartbeat Act and decided to travel for an abortion.
MICROSOFT
Microsoft announced on May 9 that it is extending travel expense assistance to employees who want an abortion but live in pro-life states. A spokesperson for the company told Forbes that the company will do “everything we can under the law to protect our employees’ rights and support employees and their enrolled dependents in accessing critical healthcare.”
POWER HOME REMODELING
A new policy announced by the company on May 17 will offer employees and dependents up to $5,000 in lifetime reimbursement for travel and lodging for any medical care that is not available within 100 miles of the employee’s residence. The family lifetime limit is $10,000. The company said the new policy was a direct response to “recent changes in reproductive healthcare laws enacted in several states, which impacts hundreds of Power employees across the U.S.”
The ability to become pregnant and give birth does not diminish a woman’s value or cause her to lose her inherent equality with men. Legalized abortion turns women into oppressors who not only abandon their children (like the men they have long complained about), but also kill them in order to do so.
Companies that are truly concerned about equality in the workplace, will work to ensure paid paternity and maternity leave, ensure that promotions are available to employees, ensure work-from-home opportunities, provide on-site daycare, and provide other options that allow women to freely choose life for their babies rather than feeling pressured to have abortions in hopes of being seen as valued and equal by their companies.
Editor’s Note: This article will be updated with additional companies that vow to pay for their employees’ abortion-related travel expenses.
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