Following the June 24 Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, major corporations like Starbucks, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Apple have pledged to cover travel expenses for employees seeking out-of-state abortions.
“We are announcing that if a state one of our teammates lives in restricts access to abortion, Dick’s Sporting Goods will provide up to $4,000 in travel expense reimbursement to travel to the nearest location where that care is legally available,” said Lauren Hobart, president and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, in a LinkedIn post. “This benefit will be provided to any teammate, spouse or dependent enrolled in our medical plan, along with one support person.”
But David O’Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, warned that these corporations could be undermining their own business objectives.
“These companies are formed to produce a product and make a profit for investors,” O’Steen told ABC News, “not to fly people across the country to have abortions.”
Conservative Christian author and podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey approached the topic from another angle.
“Quite telling that in response to the Dobbs decision, companies are promising to pay for abortions instead of expanding maternity leave,” she posted on Twitter.
In a subsequent tweet, she pointed out the fact that “the same corporations who say they have ‘no choice’ but to raise prices due to inflation have somehow found thousands of dollars to pay their employees to have abortions.”
In addition to Starbucks, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Apple, dozens of other companies have also announced their intentions to pay employees’ travel costs for abortions. Those companies include:
- Alaska Airlines
- Alloy
- Amalgamated Bank
- Amazon
- Airbnb
- Bloomberg
- Bumble
- Citigroup
- Condé Nast
- Disney
- GoDaddy
- Goldman Sachs
- Gucci
- Hewlett-Packard Company
- Kroger
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- Lyft
- Match Group
- Meta
- Microsoft
- Nike
- Salesforce
- Southwest Airlines
- Tesla
- TikTok
- Yelp
- Uber
- United Airlines
- Zillow
