Companies start to fund travel for employees who want to abort in the US

Imagine a Texas woman who, after three weeks of missing her period, found out she was pregnant. She doesn’t want to have a child right now. Until a few months ago, she could simply go to a clinic and get an abortion in a safe and legal way.

However, since September, the rules in Texas have changed. If a doctor helps her terminate the pregnancy after six weeks of pregnancy, she could be sued in court and pay a fine of at least $10,000.

One way out is to seek abortion in a neighboring state, where the practice is still legal. And some US companies have started to help with that. Companies like Apple, Yelp and Citigroup have started to pay for their travel to other US states where abortion remains legal.

Yelp, for example, announced in early April that the expenses of employees and their partners who need to go to another state for an abortion will be reimbursed by corporate health insurance, as if it were any other treatment. The managers of the company, which has 200 employees in Texas, will not be informed about the use of the benefit.

Before her, Citigroup, which has 65,000 employees in the US, 8,500 of them in Texas, adopted a similar measure, which includes spending even on airline tickets.

Apple, which has facilities in Texas, also jumped in. In September, CEO Tim Cook told employees that the company’s health plan would cover expenses for employees who need to travel to other states for an abortion, according to The New York Times. He also said the company was looking at how it could help in the legal battle against the new Texas law.

Uber and Lyft, on the other hand, have promised to cover the legal costs of drivers who are sued for helping women have abortions in Texas. The rule allows anyone who has helped in any way in the procedure to be prosecuted. Thus, it can be left over for the driver, even if he does not even know the purpose of the passenger’s trip.

The law does not require the state to take steps to investigate abortions, but encourages citizens to do so: anyone can go to court to sue third parties involved in a procedure, even if they don’t know them. If it is proven that there was an illegal action, the whistleblower can receive a bonus of $10,000. Critics of the law say this creates a bounty-hunting model to increase pressure on doctors and clinics.

In recent years, Texas has attracted tech companies because it offers a lower cost of living compared to California. On the other hand, the state, under republican rule, has adopted tougher laws on behavioral issues.

For companies, in addition to the issue of employee well-being, there is concern that many of them decide to move to other states, or do not even want to compete for vacancies in places that restrict the practice.

The US is experiencing a shortage of professionals in several areas. With the surplus of vacancies, workers have more power to decide where to work and more tranquility to leave positions in which they do not feel well. In a movement called the “Great Resignation”, more than 4.4 million people resigned from their jobs in February this year alone.

“We want to be able to recruit and retain employees wherever they want to live,” Miriam Warren, head of diversity at Yelp, told the New York Times. “The ability to control your reproductive health, and if and when you want to expand your family, is completely critical to succeeding in the workplace.”

The companies’ decision should also apply to other states that adopt restrictions. On Thursday (28), the Oklahoma state legislature passed a law similar to the one in Texas, which is still awaiting sanction from the governor. The state also adopted another law, which takes effect in August and provides for a fine of up to US$ 100,000 and a sentence of ten years in prison for those who perform an abortion.

Abortion was legalized in the US by a 1973 Supreme Court decision in what became known as Roe v. Wade, based on the constitutional right to privacy. The judges of the time (there were no women in the court) considered that it would not be up to the State to limit an intimate matter.

In 1992, the court updated the position and adopted the concept of fetal viability: women can abort without restrictions until the moment when the fetus would not be able to survive outside the uterus, which tends to happen usually after 22 weeks of gestation. However, there was no consensus on when this would actually happen, which paved the way for, in recent years, states to adopt increasingly restrictive local rules.

In September 2021, a Texas state law began to bar the procedure from six weeks of pregnancy, at which point many women have not even discovered they are pregnant. Texan law considers a fetus to be viable if its heart is already beating.

The issue is expected to be resolved again by the Supreme Court this year, until October, when the current legal year ends. The court reviews the legality of a rule created in Mississippi in 2018 that bars the practice after the 15th week of pregnancy, except in medical emergencies or fetal malformation, but not in cases of rape.

Thus, the Court will be able to put an end to the current wave of restrictions, confirm the validity of the measures or even review the 1973 release. As the collegiate currently has a conservative majority, abortion advocates fear a decision against the procedure, which is not guaranteed by law.

In Brazil, abortion is a crime provided for in the Penal Code, with a penalty of 1 to 3 years for the pregnant woman and 1 to 4 years for the doctor or author of the procedure. THE Sheet contacted Apple, Citigroup and Uber, which also operate in the country, to ask for more details about the actions taken in the US and if there were any plans to help women in Brazil in the same way, but they declined to comment.

For Juliana Reis, screenwriter and creator of the project Miles for Women’s Lives, this debate is still far from Brazil, even though women are in leadership positions in several multinationals. “When it comes to sexual rights, this gender compatibility gives way to other imperatives, such as religious or conservative. Our progressivism is limited”, she assesses.

Started in 2019, Miles for Life collects donations of loyalty program points, in addition to cash donations, to help Brazilian women travel to Latin American countries where the practice has been legalized, such as Argentina and Colombia. The project has already received more than 5,500 requests for help, and managed to assist around 850 women.

Reis says that, even with support, it is common to see women who asked for help being afraid to board for an abortion, due to social pressures and lack of emotional support from the family. “This happens both with poor women, from the periphery, alone, and with married women, who have postgraduate degrees, who feel totally helpless”, she comments.

“Today our reference is not the United States, where the setback is advancing. Our reference is Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico. Brazil is turning into a retrograde island”, she evaluates. “We can hardly expect that Brazilian companies will start to consider women’s sexual and reproductive rights as an important issue”, she considers.

US company stocks

– Defray expenses with travel for employees to have abortions in other states
Who made it: Apple, Citigroup, Yelp

– Cover legal expenses for drivers who are sued for helping women seeking abortion in Texas
Who made it: Lyft and Uber.

– Create funds to support actions in defense of abortion and employees affected by the new laws
Who made it: Bumble and Match (Tinder owner)