Walmart has announced that it is not just covering certain kinds of abortions, but also the travel expenses related to those abortions. CNBC reports:
Walmart on Friday told employees that it will expand abortion and related travel coverage, according to an internal memo. The change comes about two months after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to access the procedure.
Effective immediately, Walmart’s health care plans will cover abortion “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability,” according to the memo to employees, which was reviewed by CNBC.
Employees and their family members who are insured through Walmart will also have travel costs covered, if they cannot access a legal abortion within 100 miles of their location, according to the email, which was sent by Walmart’s Chief People Officer Donna Morris.
Of course, these are relatively narrow categories. Rape and incest-related cases are an infinitesimally small portion of abortions in America — 2 percent or less, depending on the measurement. No abortion ban on the books applies to cases where the life of the mother is truly in danger. And as Alexandra DeSanctis aptly notes, “neither miscarriage care nor treatment for ectopic pregnancy has anything to do with an induced-abortion procedure, which intentionally kills an unborn child.” So this is a largely symbolic move by Walmart – only a very, very small percentage of abortions will actually meet the company’s stated criteria.
But symbolism matters nonetheless. The move is obviously an effort to curry favor with pro-choice activists and progressive interests — and to signal allegiance, albeit in a more muted and conditional way, to abortion advocates. What’s more, according to an internal company memo about the decision, Walmart is also launching a new center that “provides services. . . such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), intrauterine insemination (IUI) and egg cryopreservation.” IVF has its own host of moral concerns. So even with all the asterisks attached, Walmart has made a decision to wade into one of the most bitter culture-war debates of our time. The department-store chain has taken a side, and it’s not the pro-life one.