Major Companies Line Up to Fund Abortion Tourism after Roe

I n recent years, dozens of major corporations have taken a stand in favor of legal, unlimited abortion, a stance that has evolved to include funding for travel to obtain one.

In 2019, when Georgia attempted to enact a heartbeat bill that would have protected unborn children from abortion once their heartbeats could be detected, several film-production companies threatened to leave the state entirely if the law ever took effect. (The law was blocked in court and remains in limbo, awaiting a ruling in this Supreme Court term’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.)

Last fall, when Texas enacted its own version of a heartbeat bill, ride-share companies Uber and Lyft took things a step further, pledging to cover legal fees for any of their drivers who faced legal action under the policy; Lyft even donated $1 million to Planned Parenthood.

In each of these instances, the boycott threats and monetary pledges were accompanied by public statements declaring that abortion restrictions are “bad for business.” One such statement — signed by companies such as Yelp, Lyft, Madewell, Bumble, Benefit Cosmetics, Glossier, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, Asana, and VICE Media — asserts that “policies that restrict reproductive health care go against our values and are bad for business” and that such policies “cost state economies $105 billion per year.”

With this last point in mind, it’s little surprise that major companies are now pivoting to an even bigger pledge: promising to cover expenses for employees who travel to obtain an abortion in another state if their own state passes pro-life laws.

These pledges anticipate that, in Dobbs, the Court will overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, allowing states to protect unborn children from abortion. In such an event, abortion-friendly states such as California, New York, and others will become self-described “abortion sanctuaries,” continuing to allow elective abortion up until birth — and companies want to help their employees get there.

In March, banking giant Citigroup announced that it will cover the costs of transportation and lodging for employees who travel to obtain an abortion if local restrictions bar them from doing so. Citigroup said the policy is a “response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in certain states in the US” and, though it did not explicitly mention abortion, that the travel reimbursements would “facilitate access to adequate resources.”

Several major companies quickly followed suit. Thus far, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Bumble, Yelp, Lyft, Starbucks, and Tesla all have announced some version of a policy to reimburse employees for expenses incurred while traveling to obtain an abortion.

There are a few ways to understand what these companies are doing. The first is ideological: The decision-makers at these companies might be avowed supporters of unlimited abortion. That certainly seems to be the case with, for instance, Lyft, which has rarely missed an opportunity to opine publicly on the need for abortion.

The second is in the framework of “woke” corporatism. Companies are becoming increasingly likely to flex their financial and cultural influence in an effort to bring about policies they want. Relatedly, companies seem to believe they can score points with the public for virtue-signaling on culture-war issues — though there’s little evidence that this is actually an effective marketing tactic.

The third is as a matter of business, and specifically a matter of how to treat the female body in an economic structure built around having women in the workforce. These companies might well have made the calculation that covering travel expenses for abortion would attract female employees to the company — and, most sinister of all, these executives might believe that such a policy is a great way to retain them.

Last fall, when Texas enacted its heartbeat bill, a comment by the head of “global activism strategy” at Ben & Jerry’s shed light on this last possibility: “If you’re operating in a state like Texas, it puts you at a competitive disadvantage,” Christopher Miller said. “It makes it difficult to deliver on pay equity and recruiting and retaining talented leaders when there is a blatant attack against women.”

If we translate “blatant attack against women” into what Miller really means — something like, “when you’re in a state that restricts abortion” — there are two ways to understand him. One is that he believes female employees want access to unlimited abortion and won’t work for companies in states where they can’t get it, an assumption that is plenty demeaning. The other is that Miller thinks companies take a financial hit when female employees become pregnant and, rather than obtaining an abortion, take maternity leave and depart the workforce, in many cases never to return.

Paying for an employee’s quick trip to get an abortion, after all, is a lot cheaper than paying for maternity leave.