Friends on Facebook have been celebrating a variety of companies previously condemned as “greedy” for their 20-50 percent price increases that have contributed to Bidenflation. What did these companies do to get out of the doghouse? Promise to pay for employee travel related to abortion care. “Here are the companies that will cover travel expenses for employee abortions.” (NYT):
A handful of companies have committed to helping their employees access abortion services.
Companies began to come out with policies on covering travel expenses for employees who need abortions in May, when a leaked memo from Supreme Court justices previewed their decision on the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This small group included Starbucks, Tesla, Yelp, Airbnb, Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, DoorDash, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss & Co., PayPal and Reddit. Others, including Disney, Meta, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Condé Nast, joined them on Friday when the decision became final, though most of them avoided making public statements directly referencing the ruling.
“As the world’s most broadly based health care company, we strive to improve access and affordability, create healthier communities, and put health within reach for the people we serve,” Johnson & Johnson said Friday. “We also believe health care decisions are best determined by individuals in consultation with their health care provider.”
Ordinarily we assume that corporations seek to maximize profit. It is much cheaper to pay for abortion care, even if travel is involved, than to pay for parental leave and then to pay 100 percent salary for the reduced productivity of a worker with a baby at home waking him/her/zir/them up at night. But the assumption of the Righteous, who just last week were condemning these companies for “greed”, seems to be that these companies are doing the good work for altruistic/philanthropic reasons.
Yet more curious is that the folks who previously celebrated pregnant people in a rainbow of 74 different gender IDs now refer to abortion care as something only for “women”. Examples:
Women are going to die because of this horrific decision. This a cry for body autonomy, and equality itself.
Women are now second class citizens…
Are there Republicans in Congress who share the view of our [Maskachusetts] Governor Charlie Baker who will vote to protect a women’s right to choose in Congress.
I don’t want to hear from anyone about how taking away reproductive rights from women is a pro-life move.
Regardless of your views on whether abortion care should be regulated at the federal or state level (if abortion care is to be regulated at all), it seems clear that decades of progress in gender science have been wiped away by the Supreme Court.
Related:
- “Amazon will pay US staff travel expenses for abortions and other treatments” (BBC): A message to Amazon staff said that the firm will pay up to $4,000 (£3,201) in travel expenses each year for treatments not available nearby. (Why is there a limit if abortion care is important?)
- Broody hen compared to gravid human in the office (2018): Just as a broody hen negatively impacts a farmer’s productivity, a gravid human poses a significant inconvenience to her employer. That’s why companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple pay for female employees to extract and freeze their eggs. It’s great to see tech companies empowering women the same way that factory farms empower their battery hens!
Yes, woke corporations also pay for egg-freezing. They want to maximally exploit their “women” slaves (I believe the pre-pregnancy term is now “menstruating people”) until they are 38, upon which they can be fired anyway.
I once knew a woman who was deeply opposed to my nascent ideas to leverage the Internet to provide ride-sharing services, similar to Uber: “Women will get raped! RAPED! You can’t do it!!
It’s a HORRIBLE idea! What, do you want women to get RAPED?!!!?”
Now that Uber and Lyft are paying for abortion clinic rides, I wonder if she’s changed her tune?
So if a Big company has an office in liberal state such as CA and an office in a conservative state such as TX, the Big company’s women in TX will get the support, time off and all paid expanses to travel and get an abortion in another state, but the Big company’s women in CA are on their own to get an abortion in their liberal state? I see this as a motivation for liberals to move to a conservative state, no?
George: I don’t think the employer can ask for personal health information. So, when you think about it, an employee could take a $4,000 annual vacation and get reimbursed by the employer by saying “I traveled to get abortion care, which was not available near my house.” If the employer asked for a receipt from the abortion care provider, the employee could say “It was a free clinic funded by a rich Democrat and therefore I was not charged for the abortion care itself.”
If the employer says “Actually there was abortion care available within 100 miles of your house,” the employee can say “Prove it by showing me your abortion care receipt!” It can be like in the military where saying “I’m pregnant” protects a brother, sister, or binary-resister from being deployed (see https://coppercourier.com/story/watch-mcsally-says-women-in-the-military-get-pregnant-to-skirt-deployment/ ).
@philg: That’s right. That’s an excellent analysis and it applies in a lot of other ways as well.
@George A.: There’s a lot more, too. Sometimes, people who say they are pregnant, say they had an abortion, say that they had it at a doctors office and say that it cost lots of money and left them internally scarred were:
1) Never pregnant
2) Never had an abortion
3) Were in perfect health
4) Were using the story to extort money and
5) Left other people internally scarred by carrying on the lie.
I’ve known one! Personally! What are you supposed to say? “I want to see the pictures of your scars, honey? I believe you but I don’t really, you know, BELIEVE you.”
@Philip, @Alex, with regards to pay the cost of abortion, a more interesting question is this: when the shit hits the fan and a layoff is called for, will the CEO’s of those do-gooders companies take a pay cut to save the jobs of those women to whom they have now committing a no-cost abortion? If not, then they are flat-out stilling from the share holders to cover this cost.
@George A:
Yup. They’re stealing from their shareholders to fund it. It’s theft. The “Woke” companies don’t see it that way because they’re betting that the world will remain “Woke” in the long term. In terms of how that impacts their bottom line, they should be required to report every penny.
George, Alex: It isn’t stealing if it makes business sense. As noted above, if a company is going to have extended 100 percent paid parental leave, purchasing abortion care boosts profits for an employer. See also
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/06/13/broody-hen-compared-to-gravid-human-in-the-office/
“Just as a broody hen negatively impacts a farmer’s productivity, a gravid human poses a significant inconvenience to her employer. That’s why companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple pay for female employees to extract and freeze their eggs. It’s great to see tech companies empowering women the same way that factory farms empower their battery hens!”
@philg, I am for sure not going to buy from any retailers that participate in this, I know I will be overpaying.
@philg: “I don’t think the employer can ask for personal health information. ”
This is exactly what has happened at my employer for hundreds of employees over the past 28 months. Back during March 2020 when Covid fears were taking over, my employer implemented unlimited paid time off for any employee that tested positive for Covid or came in contact with someone that tested positive for Covid. The employee seeking to take paid time off under the plan was supposed to show a positive test to HR, to be followed by a negative Covid test when ready to return to work.
Employees simply refused to share their personal medical information (the Covid test results) with HR and have been staying out on paid leave for months at a time, returning when they feel like it, and going out on paid leave again when the feel like it. Some workers have been out in excess of 12 weeks of paid Covid leave. Whole departments have shut down for 4 to 8 weeks at a time. Management has done nothing to stop the abuse.
@DP, by efficiency of output and value produced by employees your workplace reminds me typical Soviet state-owned employer
DP: That is beautiful! I celebrate people who respond rationally to their overlords’ rules. I wouldn’t say that these employees are guilt of “abuse”. It is the managers who are guilty of stupidity. (In the same way that I celebrate Lunden Roberts for finding a way to turn one night with Hunter Biden into more after-tax spending power than a median American college graduate would obtain from a lifetime of work; see https://www.the-sun.com/news/1707195/hunter-biden-paid-baby-mama-joe-biden/ )
“Hills Like White Elephants” but instead of the girl talking to her boyfriend, she’s talking to her Starbucks HR rep.
Wonders of modern public company stricture. Majority of shareholders have no voice. If companies have extra $4000 lying around why it was not distributed to the shareholders? Or used on research and development? Or used in compensation to retain and hire talent?
Anyone can take a sick day and travel. Who needs nanny corporations.
> Anyone can take a sick day and travel. Who needs nanny corporations.
Presumably the Republicans who fought tooth and nail to prevent a pure public option for the ACA.
@Anon – So a nanny government then?
Thanks to recent heroic efforts for public health, the whole abortion controversy might soon be moot. If present trends continue, no woman and/or pregnant person will be able to achieve a live birth. What a healing power for reconciliation!
Cheaper than 6 months of maternity leave