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    Many US companies move to pay travel costs for employees seeking abortions

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    Many US companies move to pay travel costs for employees seeking abortionsTech firms and banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, add ‘critical healthcare’ package Many US corporate giants have moved swiftly to provide support and financial assistance to employees seeking abortions in states that outlawed the procedure following the US supreme court’s decision on Friday to overturn its landmark Roe v Wade ruling.With potentially millions of women soon looking to cross state lines for the procedure, many employers have added “critical healthcare” packages to employees benefit packages.The measures reflect, in some cases, elevated responsibility that businesses now feel to respond to pressure from investors, customers and employees at a time when corporate values do not conform with the legislatures of states in which they or their employees are based.Many banks and tech firms have announced they will cover travel expenses for US workers in need of abortions as part of their medical benefits. After the reversal was announced Friday, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs joined Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase in offering travel benefits.“We will continue to provide benefits that support our colleagues’ family planning choices wherever we are legally permitted to do so,” Citi’s head of human resources, Sara Wechter, wrote in a memo to employees on Friday.Tech firms, also, have moved to accommodate employees needs. Microsoft extended its financial support for “critical healthcare” after the draft version of the supreme court opinion overturning Roe was first leaked.Apple has said the existing benefits package allows employees to travel out of state for medical care, and Facebook parent Meta has said it will offer travel expense reimbursement “to the extent permitted by law”.In entertainment, Disney, Condé Nast, Warner Bros Discovery and Netflix are among those who have said they will offer travel reimbursements.While large companies can mitigate the supreme court ruling, the measures may not address the concerns of employees at firms that have in recent years located to low-tax states that have either enacted restrictions or essentially banned access to abortion.Texas, for instance, has been aggressively selling itself as a tax- and regulation-lite home to giants such as Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and Tesla. Facebook, Amazon and Apple all have all grown their presence there.But the commitment of Texas, like Missouri, to a near-total ban on abortion could now clash with those companies’ stated values and harm the state’s ability to attract new business, employees and investment.Earlier this year, Texas state representative Briscoe Cain sent a cease-and-desist letter to Citigroup, saying he would propose legislation barring localities in the state from doing business with any company that provides travel benefits for employees seeking abortions.The St Louis mayor, Tishaura Jones, said in a post to Twitter that she believes abortion bans at the state level are going to make it harder to attract businesses. Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas said one business has already backed out of setting up in the city.But many large companies have stayed silent, including McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Arkansas-based Walmart – the largest employer in the US with dozens of stores in states that have enacted abortion bans.The Business Roundtable, an organization that represents some of the nation’s most powerful companies, has said it “does not have a position on the merits of the case”.Perhaps a more pressing concern is that for millions of people not employed by a large international or national company, abortion restrictions present a more onerous challenge.According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, abortion bans and restrictions don’t reduce unintended pregnancy or demand for abortion. Rather, they impose significant hurdles to obtaining care, causing stress for people in need of abortion and leading some to experience forced pregnancy and all its troubling consequences. “Evidence also shows the disproportionate and unequal impact abortion restrictions have on people who are already marginalized and oppressed – including Black and Brown communities, other people of color, people with low incomes, young people, LGBTQ communities, immigrants and people with disabilities,” institute president said in a statement Dr Herminia Palacio.In response, regional governments and community organizations have started outreach efforts to help anyone in need of the procedure. Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, has announced that the city will provide $300,000 in grants to organizations that offer abortion and family planning.Some left-leaning states have seen abortion procedures increase as surrounding states tightened access even before Roe fell. In Illinois, abortion increased by a quarter between 2017 and 2020. Guttmacher said in response “local and national abortion funds increased their capacity and helped even more people pay for their abortions”.But with an increasingly fragmented and increasingly polarized abortion landscape, many companies are likely to find themselves forced to respond to both pro-choice and abortion activists while pledging to promote women’s equality and workplace advancement.The issue of freedom to travel to other states for an abortion procedure issue has one notable, anti-Roe supporter. In his concurring opinion released Friday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it would be unconstitutional for a state to impose travel restrictions. “In my view, the answer is no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel,” Kavanaugh wrote.TopicsUS politicsAbortionRoe v WadeHealthCitigroupBank of AmericaGoldman SachsnewsReuse this content More

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      Corporate America buckles down for culture war on Roe v Wade

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      Corporate America buckles down for culture war on Roe v WadeRepublicans are mulling retaliation against firms providing benefits such as travel assistance for employees seeking abortion After a supreme court decision that overturns Roe v Wade was leaked and signaled the impending end of federal constitutional protection for abortions, a trickle of companies have slowly started to announce policies that provide abortion access for their employees. But while the protections may keep employees and consumers happy, the threat of retaliation from conservative lawmakers looms.Abortion surveillance: in a post-Roe world, could an internet search lead to an arrest? Read moreCitigroup, one of the biggest banks in the US, quietly started covering the travel expenses of employees who want to get an abortion but are banned from getting one in their home state.The benefit was not announced publicly. Instead, the company mentioned the change in benefits in a March filing for shareholders. Once news outlets began to report on the new benefit, the Republican ire began.Conservatives in Congress asked House and Senate administrators to cancel its contract with the company, which issues credit cards to lawmakers to use for work-related flights, office supplies and other goods. A state lawmaker in Texas, infuriated by Citigroup, introduced a bill that would prevent companies from doing business with local governments in Texas if they provide abortion-related benefits to their employees.“Citigroup decided to pander to the woke ideologues in its C-suite instead of obeying the laws of Texas,” said Briscoe Cain, the Texas state representative who introduced the bill, in a statement. “We will enact laws necessary to prevent this misuse of shareholder money and hold Citigroup accountable for its violation of our state’s abortion laws”.Citigroup has now been joined by Amazon, Apple, Yelp, Match Group, Tesla and Levi Strauss & Company, all which have said they will offer travel assistance to employees who are in states that restrict abortions. Insiders at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have told news outlets they too are considering similar policies.“I expect there will be a significant shift and the most leading companies are going to recognize that they need to protect the healthcare of their employees,” said Shelley Alpern, director of shareholder advocacy at Rhia Ventures. “Most companies would like to avoid taking a public stance on this issue because it’s so controversial, but there are higher risks for companies when they don’t protect their employees’ healthcare access.”In today’s heated political climate – and with midterm elections looming – corporate America can expect a fiery response to any stance it takes on Roe’s fall. But given the widespread impact the end of Roe v Wade will have on much of the country – 26 states will restrict abortion access if the decision is overturned – it is unlikely that companies can get away with not responding to the issue once the supreme court makes its final decision.Neeru Paharia, an associate professor at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, said that people expect more out of companies as trust in government has fallen.“People are enacting their political will in the marketplace,” she said. For consumers, a purchase from a company can be a symbolic sign of support. For employees, their identities can be tied to the ethical positions of the company they work for.Over the last few years, corporate America has started to become more vocal on various issues that have gotten the attention of conservative lawmakers, including voting rights and LGBTQ+ issues. But conservative politicians have gotten bolder at fighting back against what they consider to be “woke capitalism”.While the GOP has historically positioned itself as the business-friendly, tax-cutting political party, conservative lawmakers have been emboldened to threaten and punish companies who speak out on controversial issues.Last month, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, revoked special land use privileges the state gave to Disney for its Disney World theme park in Orlando after the company – responding to backlash from employees and consumers – spoke out against the state’s “don’t say gay” law. The move appeared to catch people by surprise. Lloyd Blankfein, former Goldman Sachs CEO, tweeted that the move “smacks of government retaliation for exercising free speech. Bad look for a conservative.”“That was really shocking,” Paharia said. “Now you have a situation where consumers and employees want companies to take a political stance, but then you have governments that are possibly retaliating against them.”When it comes to abortion, “even though it might not be [explicitly] taking a side … [companies] are taking a position based on the kind of benefits they are going to offer their employees”.The threats lawmakers have made have so far not come to fruition, but the party seems serious on trying to penalize companies in some way. The Republican senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill this week that would not allow companies to deduct abortion-related travel benefits as regular employee benefits when a company files its taxes.“Our tax code should be pro-family and promote a culture of life,” he said in a statement.With these warnings, companies may try to keep the introduction of abortion-related quiet or downplay their significance. When Citigroup’s CEO, Jane Fraser – the first woman to lead a major American bank – was asked in a shareholders meeting about the company’s new abortion travel benefit, she said the benefit “isn’t intended to be a statement about a very sensitive issue”.“What we did here was follow our past practices,” she said, adding that the company had “covered reproductive healthcare benefits for over 20 years. And our practice has also been to make sure our employees have the same health coverage, no matter where in the US they live.”Jen Stark, senior director of corporate strategy at Tara Health Foundation, who helped coordinate the signatures of over 180 executives in a statement against abortion bans in 2019, said the potential backlash from conservative lawmakers proves that companies need to act on abortion restrictions beyond mitigating effects for their employees.“They can buy all the plane tickets their workers need, and that addresses the immediate harm, but the structural deficiency is the collateral damage,” she said. “The supreme court case didn’t happen in a bubble … you’re kind of walking over the rubble.”Beyond benefits for employees, Stark has been advocating for companies to use their lobbying powers and scrutinize political donations as state lawmakers prepare to restrict abortions.“We are at the moment everyone’s cried wolf about. It’s here, but there was also a lot of headwind,” she said. “What companies can do with a stroke of a pen to mitigate some of the harm is important, but the larger issue is getting out of this structural whirlpool that we’re in.”TopicsRoe v WadeCitigroupBankingGoldman SachsAppleUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More