The Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and many companies are offering to help their employees find reproductive care outside of their home states — which may yet be impacted the court’s ruling.
Yahoo, Target Corp.
TGT
and Procter & Gamble
PG
are among the latest companies offering to reimburse their employees for travel costs when workers seek reproductive care in other states, including abortion and gender-affirming procedures. The benefit is available to any employee who cannot access these services within 100 miles of where they live, and also applies to the workers’ dependents.
Several other companies, including Disney
DIS,
Netflix
NFLX,
Condé Nast, Dick’s Sporting Goods
DKS,
Starbucks, Tesla, Citigroup, Yelp, Lyft, Levi Strauss and Amazon, have also previously announced that they would cover travel expenses for workers with limited access to safe abortion procedures in their home states.
And banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM,
Bank of America Corp.
BAC,
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
GS
and Citigroup Inc
C.
have also extended their travel benefits to employees seeking abortions in other states after the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Read More: Instagram and Facebook are quickly removing posts offering abortion pills
But some Republicans have called out companies for reimbursing workers who travel for reproductive care, including abortion. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) proposed legislation that would prohibit employers from deducting expenses related to their employees’ abortion travel costs, or gender-affirming care for young children of their employees.
In May, a leaked draft opinion first revealed that the Supreme Court may look to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion in 1973. And this spurred questions about what would happen next, including which states would “trigger” a ban on abortion once the ruling was overturned.
Related: Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: An estimated 40 million women will lose access to abortion
In fact, “Can you travel to another state for an abortion?” was a breakout Google search in the day following the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion, which means the search term spiked by more than 5,000%.
And roughly one in three voters (31%) said that an abortion ban would make a state a “less desirable” place to live, according to a new Suffolk University and USA Today poll.
The Human Cost: ‘I’ll do anything to keep my family together’: Trans kids’ parents are draining their savings to flee conservative states
These are some of the companies that have said they will cover travel costs for their employees seeking abortions, and how much some of them will reimburse.
Amazon
Prior to the Supreme Court leak, Amazon
AMZN
told staff that the company will cover travel expenses for all non-life-threatening medical treatments, including abortions. The e-commerce giant, which is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. behind Walmart
WMT,
said it will reimburse up to $4,000 per year for such expenses.
Also see: Joe Manchin reacts to Roe v. Wade ruling: ‘I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh’
The new benefit is effective retroactively to Jan. 1, and applies when the procedure is unavailable within 100 miles of the employee’s home, and virtual care is not possible. It is open to U.S. employees (including warehouse and office workers) or covered dependents enrolled in Premera or Aetna health plans.
Citigroup
Citigroup
C
also began covering travel expenses earlier this year for U.S. employees forced to go out of state for abortions. About 8,500 of the banking giant’s 65,000 U.S. employees are in Texas, which has banned abortions in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy.
“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 an April filing.
Condé Nast
According to a statement memo from Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch, which was released the day that SCOTUS announced its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the media giant will reimburse travel and lodging expenses for employees who seek abortions and infertility or gender-reaffirming services.
Lynch said the ruling from the Supreme Court was a “crushing blow to reproductive rights,” the Condé Nast-owned magazine Vanity Fair reported. And the company will offer “enhancements to our U.S. health benefits to assist covered employees and their covered dependents in obtaining access to reproductive care regardless of where they reside.”
Disney
After the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, Disney
DIS
said it would cover travel costs for employees for “family planning,” including out-of-state abortions. Disney employs about 195,000 people, including an estimated 80,000 in Florida — where a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks is set to go into effect in July.
“We recognize the impact of the ruling and that we remain committed to providing comprehensive access to quality and affordable care for all our employees, cast members and their families, including family planning and reproductive care, no matter where they live,” a Disney spokesperson told CBS the same day as the Supreme Court ruling was released.
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc.
DKS
said it would reimburse employees up to $4,000 for abortion-related travel expenditures, the company said in a statement that was in response to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. And the coverage will extend to spouses and dependents enrolled in the company’s medical plan, along with one support person.
“We are making this decision so our teammates can access the same health care options, regardless of where they live, and choose what is best for them,” Ed Stack, the company’s executive chairman, and CEO Lauren Hobart said.
DoorDash
DoorDash
DASH
had said that it will begin covering travel expenses for abortion procedures after the Supreme Court document was first leaked.
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“It’s paramount that all DoorDash employees and their dependents covered on our health plans have access to safe, timely healthcare. This is one of our guiding principles as an employer,” a DoorDash spokesperson told MarketWatch. “Because safe abortion procedures may become severely limited in more states, DoorDash will cover certain travel-related expenses for employees who face new barriers to access and need to travel out of state for abortion-related care.”
Google parent company Alphabet
GOOGL
said that it offers travel cost coverage for employees who seek abortions out of state, a company spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. The coverage, which Google began offering within the past year, applies to only full-time employees.
Levi Strauss
Clothing-maker Levi Strauss
LEVI
announced in May that the company will also cover travel costs for medical procedures that cannot be performed in the state their employees live in, which includes abortion.
The company says employees are “eligible for reimbursement for healthcare-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion.”
Levi Strauss also noted that its employees are particularly impacted by the issue of reproductive rights, as 58% of the company’s global workforce is female. “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,” the company added in its announcement. “That means protecting reproductive rights.”
Mastercard
According to a Mastercard
MA
company memo seen by Reuters, the financial services company will cover costs associated with travel and lodging for employees seeking abortions in states they don’t live in.
Such coverage includes “family planning and reproductive benefits, from fertility treatments to surrogacy and adoption services, pregnancy prevention including vasectomy coverage and access to contraception and pregnancy termination,” a Mastercard spokesperson told Bloomberg.
Meta Platforms
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms
META
said it will cover up to $4,000 worth of travel costs for employees seeking abortions., Reuters reported on June 24.
There are more details to come, as Meta is still “assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved,” a spokesperson told Reuters.
Microsoft
Microsoft said it will “continue to do everything we can under the law to protect our employees’ rights and support employees” in accessing critical healthcare. Those protections include services like abortion and gender-affirming care in the U.S., a Microsoft official told Reuters.
“This support is being extended to include travel expense assistance for these and other medical services where access to care is limited in availability in an employee’s home geographic region,” the statement continued.
Netflix
Netflix Inc. offers travel reimbursement for full-time employees in the United States, as well as their dependents, who need to travel for health procedures including and gender-affirming care and abortions a company spokesperson informed CNN. The company provides a lifetime allowance of $10,000 for employees or their dependents per service.
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, said it would similarly assist employees who need to travel for abortion-related healthcare. Ohio is one of the states with an abortion ban that triggered after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
P&G’s policy will reimburse employees for travel expenses for qualified medical care if it is not available within 50 miles of the employee’s residence. And abortion is considered a qualified medical procedure, the company told the Wall Street Journal.
“This is an important issue to many people, and we recognize their broad range of views,” a P&G spokesperson told WSJ. “As we have for many years, P&G supports our employees in having access to a wide range of healthcare options so they can determine what’s best for them and their families.”
PayPal
Financial services company PayPal
PYPL
announced in May it would “support” employees who are impacted by abortion-related bans or restrictions depending on the state they live in.
“We communicated directly with Texas employees about our commitment to providing equitable health care benefits,” Kausik Rajgopal, the executive vice president at PayPal, told employees in a May 9 memo viewed by CBS News.
See also: Medical groups warn of ‘negative mental-health outcomes’ after Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
PayPal will “extend this support to any state where legislation following the court’s decision leads to diminished healthcare access with respect to reproductive health,” Rajgopal said.
Starbucks
Starbucks
SBUX
added a worker healthcare benefit that offers to reimburse the travel cost for employees enrolled in its program who seek an abortion or gender-affirming procedure, but who cannot access these services within 100 miles of where they live. This also applies to the workers’ dependents.
“Regardless of what the Supreme Court ends up deciding, we will always ensure our partners have access to quality healthcare,” wrote Sara Kelly, acting executive vice president of partner resources, in a letter posted to the Starbucks site. “Whatever healthcare choice you believe is right for you and your family, you deserve access to those services and the benefits that Starbucks provides.”
Target
Beginning in July, Target will cover travel expenses that employees could take on when looking for healthcare including reproductive services, mental health care and cardiac care outside of their community, a Target spokesperson told MarketWatch.
“For years, our healthcare benefits have included some financial
support for travel, when team members needed select healthcare
procedures that weren’t available where they live,” the representative said. But the company began re-evaluating its benefits a few months ago, and “this effort became even more relevant as we learned about the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion, given that it would impact access to healthcare in some states.”
Tesla
The “People and Culture” portion of Tesla’s newly released 2021 Impact Report noted that the company wants its benefits to exceed the standards of the manufacturing industry. And that includes an expanded “Safety Net” program and health insurance offering that covers travel and lodging support for Tesla employees “who may need to seek healthcare services that are unavailable in their home state.”
While CEO Elon Musk did not immediately comment, he tweeted in September that he believes “government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness. That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.”
Yahoo
The Apollo Global Management-owned
APO
Yahoo said it will also help employees with healthcare-related travel costs in the wake of Roe’s reversal.
“Yahoo told its employees in May that the company would offer up to $5,000 reimbursement toward travel and lodgings for anyone that has to travel more than 100 miles to access medical procedures,” a company representative told MarketWatch.
Yelp
Yelp
YELP,
the crowd-sourced reviews platform, will cover travel expenses for both employees and their dependents who need to go out-of-state for abortions. Yelp has 4,000 employees, including 200 workers in Texas.
Yelp employees can submit the receipts for their travel expenses directly to their health insurance company, so “no one else at Yelp is ever going to know who is accessing this, or how or when, and it will be a reimbursement that comes through the insurance provider directly,” Yelp’s chief diversity officer, Miriam Warren, said in April.
Related:‘Access to safe abortion saves lives,’ WHO chief says
“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,” Warren also said in a statement at the time.
Other ways companies are supporting abortion access
Ride-sharing service Lyft
LYFT
announced in April that it will pay any legal fees for its drivers if they are sued for bringing women to clinics to receive abortions, which came as a result of the strict anti-abortion bills in Oklahoma and Texas. The Oklahoma bill, for example, would allow a person to sue another individual who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.”
“This law is incompatible with people’s basic rights to privacy, our community guidelines, the spirit of rideshare, and our values as a company,” Lyft wrote in a blog post.
Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of competitor Uber
UBER,
tweeted that his company would support its drivers in the same way.
In 2021, Texas-based dating-app company Bumble, which prides itself on being women-founded and women-led, created a relief fund supporting the reproductive rights of women and people across the gender spectrum who seek abortions in the state.
And Match.com’s
MTCH
CEO Shar Dubey (not the company itself) also created a fund to help Match employees in Texas to seek abortions outside the state at around the same time.
Salesforce
CRM
CEO Marc Benioff also said in 2021 that the company would cover relocation costs for its Texas employees impacted by the state’s restrictive abortion laws.
“If you have concerns about access to reproductive healthcare in your state, Salesforce will help relocate you and members of your immediate family,” a Salesforce company memo stated.
