More than 650 employees at Alphabet, which owns Google, are demanding that the company offer abortion procedure benefits to third parties, suspend donations to anti-abortion politicians and better protect users from abortion-related misinformation and law enforcement requests.
The demands were sent this week in a petition to executives seen by Reuters. Workers reflect concerns across the United States since a Supreme Court ruling in June led or raised the possibility of new restrictions on abortion and reproductive care in more than half of the 50 states.
Google declined to comment on the petition, organized by the Alphabet Workers Union.
Many companies, including Google, have established policies to help employees seeking abortion procedures. Alphabet officials said temporary and contract workers should also receive these benefits, such as reimbursement for travel to states where the procedure remains legal.
Thousands of workers live in states that restrict abortion, estimated Alejandra Beatty, technical program manager at Alphabet’s health subsidiary Verily and co-leader of the petition.
Alphabet, which employs more than 174,000 people worldwide, said that while it sets some standards, it cannot fully dictate the policies of outside vendors.
In addition, the petition says the company must not direct political contributions to groups and candidates campaigning to restrict access to abortion.
Officials write that user searches on abortion on Google “should never be saved, turned over to authorities, or treated as a crime.”
Google said it will continue to fight police requests for user information it deems excessive.
Workers also echoed the demands of abortion advocates who have said for years that the search site should remove search results from pregnancy centers, which try to convince people to give up the procedure. Google said it removes misleading results that are reported.
Beatty said Alphabet should consider protecting reproductive rights an existential battle, as it did with Covid-19, and convene a task force to oversee product changes.
“We’re looking for a comprehensive answer,” she said.
