It’s too soon to say. Certainly too soon for most of them to say.
In overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court presented corporate America with a question that may prove uncomfortable for big companies headquartered in states such as Texas, where abortion has effectively been banned.
Several national companies — including Disney, Goldman Sachs, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook — reacted the Dobbs v Jackson ruling handed down Friday by announcing that they would reimburse the cost of employees who need to travel out of state to access abortion care. Companies including Apple, Amazon, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, SalesForce, Bumble and Levi’s had already announced similar policies, in anticipation of such a ruling or after draconian restrictions on abortion were adopted by states such as Texas, which last year banned virtually all abortions after the six-week mark of pregnancy.
But many Houston companies have not been forthcoming about whether they will modify their benefits to help employees get access to reproductive health services.
“We do not have a comment on this issue,” said Kinder Morgan, contacted by the Houston Chronicle on Monday.
“We decline to contribute at this time,” said EOG Services, an oil and gas company.
“We have no comment on this,” said Hines, the real estate firm.
[…]
Experts say no Texas laws prohibit companies from paying for travel for abortion services. A 2017 state law limits the extent to which conventional insurance companies can cover elective abortion, but makes no mention of travel.
“I don’t see they currently have liability if they pay for travel expenses for a lawful, out-of-state abortion,” said Seth J. Chandler, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Whether companies decide to pay for travel expenses may have something to do with how it will affect their ability to attract talent, Chandler said.
“There is an issue of how you would attract employees, if there is a type of health care they perceive they may need is illegal,” Chandler said. “One vehicle for companies to overcome that reluctance is to say, ‘We’ll pay for your travel.’”
It’s not clear to me that they wouldn’t face civil litigation under the vigilante provisions of SB8, but even if they don’t, the Handmaid’s Tale caucus of the legislature will be working to change that.
Several companies have already announced they would cover expenses for an employee who has to travel for an abortion, including Walt Disney Co., Meta and JPMorgan Chase.
Those companies could be punished under the “accomplice liability” section of Texas, which applies to all residents and, according to Cain, also businesses.
“So, it also not just goes after the doctors, but it’s going to be going after those giving rides, supporting it, procuring the means, assisting, anybody that is an accomplice to the procurement of an abortion is also then committing a crime,” the Republican said.
That of course is chief woman hater Briscoe Cain, who says in the story that prosecuting “abortion crimes” is one of his top priorities. Let’s get real, it’s his main driving force. If Briscoe Cain gets his way, a whole lot of people are going to go to jail. That’s the reality we’re in right now.
There are a couple of ways that businesses can respond. They can cower and submit to the likes of Cain, and throw a bunch of their employees under the bus in the process. They can get the hell out of Texas or not come here in the first place; I suspect some will do that, though it’s hard to say how many. Allowing some employees to not live here would be another variant of this. I hope we get some real data and not just anecdotes about that.
And of course, they can fight. They can support candidates who support abortion rights, and other things that SCOTUS and the radicals that are currently in power are threatening, like same sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. That would be a huge change on their part, because keeping their heads down and not offending the powers that be is always the easier road to take. But it has the potential to have by far the biggest effect. It’s a choice they have, that’s all I’m saying. Providing expenses for employees who have to travel out of state to get reproductive health care is a reasonable choice as a short-term stopgap. But there’s only so long that can work. They can’t avoid the choice forever.