BUSINESSES REACT TO COURT DECISION

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion quickly drew responses from the corporate world, with dozens of major employers committing to cover travel expenses for employees in states where the medical procedure will be banned.

Others had already announced the coverage policy when a draft of the decision leaked earlier this year.

Here’s how some of the nation’s biggest corporations are currently helping workers:

AMAZON

Amazon on May 2 told employees in the U.S. that it would cover up to $4,000 in travel expenses related to medical procedures including abortion services. The policy is retroactive to Jan. 1 for employees and their dependents covered by two company-offered health plans, Reuters reported, and covers services rendered if care is not possible to be offered virtually or available within 100 miles of an employee’s home. Such a distance is typically referred to as an abortion desert; as of 2017, there were 27 cities with populations over 100,000 that qualified for such a title.

APPLE

The company has said it will cover the cost of abortions and travel for treatment for its retail workers.

CITIGROUP

The New-York-based bank, which is headed by its first female chief executive officer, Jane Fraser, and has some 8,500 employees in Texas alone, pledged to cover travel costs for employees seeking abortions. A source said the costs covered could include airfares and lodging if necessary.

LYFT AND UBER

Describing the Texas abortion law as an “attack on women’s access to health care,” Lyft Inc. Chief Executive Officer Logan Green said last week that the ride-hailing company is working with health providers to cover the cost of rides for women in Texas and Oklahoma — which outlawed abortion last month — who seek out of state care. Both Lyft and Uber have also pledged to pay legal fees for any of their drivers sued under anti-abortion laws for helping women seek out the procedure.

MATCH

The Dallas-based parent company of dating apps including Tinder and OkCupid set up a fund to support staff after Texas’s near-total abortion ban came into effect in late 2021. Chief Executive Officer Shar Dubey described the ban as “so regressive to the cause of women’s rights that I felt compelled to speak publicly about my personal views.” The fund aims to cover the costs for employees and dependents who need to seek care outside of Texas. Rival dating app Bumble has set up a similar fund.

META PLATFORMS

A spokesperson for the parent of Facebook and Instagram said June 24 the company was working to cover travel-related costs for employees who cannot access reproductive healthcare and other services in their home state. “We intend to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law,” the spokesperson said. Some anti-abortion laws in states like Oklahoma and Texas include bounty clauses that target people who assist someone receive abortion care, whether or not they knew their actions did so.

MICROSOFT

The technology company on May 9 said that it would expand its healthcare reimbursement program to include travel if an employee could not access healthcare because it was not available nearby. The company said the move would “support employees and their enrolled dependents in accessing critical health care — which already includes services like abortion and gender-affirming care — regardless of where they live across the US.”

SALESFORCE

Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff told employees in September that the company would help any employees living in Texas to relocate out of the state if they wished to move in response to strict abortion laws.

STARBUCKS

The company on May 16 said that it would reimburse travel expenses for employees and their dependents should they need to travel more than 100 miles to receive an abortion or access gender-affirming care. A date for implementation wasn’t immediately noted; the memo from Partner Resources executive-vice president Sara Kelly said it would be “coming soon.”

“Regardless of what the Supreme Court ends up deciding, we will always ensure our partners have access to quality healthcare,” Kelly said in a statement.

TESLA

The carmaker in its 2021 global impact report said its expanded health-care policies included covering travel and hotel costs for employees who had to travel out-of-state for health care. The company is based in Texas, where accessing abortion is increasingly tenuous.

ZOOM

The videoconferencing company’s US benefits already included reproductive care coverage and coverage of travel more than 100 miles from home for medical services, according to an internal memo on June 24 from Matthew Saxon, Zoom’s chief people officer.