Amazon, Facebook y Apple; Netflix y Disney; Citigroup, JP Morgan y Bank of America; Tesla y Uber; Johnson
Most of the companies that have joined the list since the Supreme Court annulled the right to interrupt pregnancy in general in June, and since 13 states later launched their own laws to persecute the practice, offer extensions of insurance coverage to abortion that involve funding travel to states where abortion is still legal. In some cases, the payment of the trips explicitly includes lodging expenses; in others, like Amazon’s, the company sets a limit amount ($4,000 in this example); in some more, the conditions are yet to be determined.
The last big firm to join the cast, albeit partially, was the retail distribution giant Waltmart, the largest private employer in the country. The department store chain on Friday communicated to its 1.6 million workers the decision to expand its self-insured health care plans so that they cover abortion “when there is a risk to the health of the mother, rape or incest, pregnancy ectopic, spontaneous abortion or lack of fetal viability”. Before, the company’s internal insurance only paid for the end of pregnancy “when the mother’s health was in danger if the fetus reached term, if the fetus could not survive delivery or if death was imminent after birth” . The company will now also provide “travel support” to workers who want to have an abortion – under the new coverage – when the medical service they require is more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) from their residences.
The extensions of coverage of companies and their aid for travel for the purpose of abortion emerge as an important counterweight to the devastating ruling of the US High Court. But they are not a direct passport for access to such a right through the alternative route offered by refugee states with legislation protecting the free interruption of pregnancy. The organizations that defend free choice and their lawyers warn of possible legal problems and the practical application or real scope of said aid.
The company Lyft, competitor of Uber, or the law firm Sidley Austin are among those that have already received threats of legal action against their assistance measures by Republican legislators in Texas who at the same time seek to prohibit as many corporations from doing business there. pay for or fund abortions “regardless of where they are performed.” How will companies react when faced with litigation or laws like this?
On the other hand, and according to the Guttmacher Reproductive Health Institute, three quarters of abortion patients in the US. They live below or near the poverty line and do not work in businesses where they can help them with this. Advocacy organizations also fear that many employers who have promised to cover abortion trips will not extend the benefit to casual, part-time or contract workers.
“If we allow companies to decide who has access to abortion, we get into a difficult situation,” says Bethany Corbin, a lawyer specializing in women’s health, in the Atlantic. The situation, however, is already more than complicated.
