The roar of antiabortion laws sweeping through U.S. statehouses is echoing loudly in human resources offices.
Companies that have offered to help cover travel costs for employees who have to go out of state for abortions are trying to figure out how to go about it. Large corporations including Apple Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bumble Inc. have begun offering such benefits for reproductive-care services not available in an employee’s home state.
It’s a new world for employers to navigate — one brought on by the more restrictive laws being enforced across the U.S. Although most health insurance plans cover the costs of abortions, companies must now create an infrastructure to ensure employees’ access to those procedures, protect their workers’ privacy and fend off any legal actions brought by states looking to block any workarounds to their laws.
Laura Spiekerman, co-founder of New York-based startup Alloy, said that reimbursing workers for abortion-related travel is the “low bar” of what companies should do. “I’m surprised and disappointed more companies aren’t doing it,” she said.
The company — which has a handful of employees in states with restrictive abortion laws including Florida, Arizona and Mississippi — in January said that it would pay as much as $1,500 toward travel expenses for employees or their partners needing to travel out of state for abortions. Alloy also said it would cover 50% of legal costs, as much as $5,000, if any employee or their partner had to deal with legal issues due to antiabortion laws.
Texas’ SB 8, which went into effect in September, has paved the way for increasingly restrictive abortion laws in other states. The so-called heartbeat bill bans abortions after the six-week mark and deputizes private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against anyone they suspect or know broke the law.
This month, Idaho’s Legislature voted to pass a similar ban, and Florida…