A number of major companies have announced that they will pay employees’ travel expenses if they want to travel to another state for an abortion. Amazon, for example:
Amazon.com Inc, the second-largest U.S. private employer, told its staff on Monday it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for non-life threatening medical treatments including abortions, according to a message seen by Reuters.
The decision makes the online retailer the latest company after Citigroup Inc, Yelp Inc and others to respond to Republican-backed state laws curbing abortion access, helping employees bypass them.
It shows how companies are eager to retain and attract talent in locations that remain important to their operations despite legal changes impacting employees’ health.
Actually, of course, the main impact is on the baby’s health, not the employee’s. But in addition to the corporations noted in the Reuters report, companies like Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Salesforce, Levi Strauss and Bumble have volunteered to help employees get abortions.
Usually when companies adopt woke political positions, they are either engaging in pointless “virtue (usually vice) signaling” or knuckling under to youthful terrorists among their employees. But that may not be the case here. Paying for an abortion plus travel expenses is vastly cheaper than paying for the obstetric care and hospitalization associated with a birth, plus months of maternity leave. Viewed in strictly financial terms, helping to prevent employees from having children is good for the bottom line.
But don’t expect liberals to take note of a rare instance of actual corporate greed.
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