Amazon to Reimburse Employees Up to $4,000 If They Cross State Lines to Get an Abortion

Amazon is committing to financing the abortions of its employees.

On Monday, the second-largest private employer in the U.S. told its staff that it will pay up to $4,000 annually in travel expenses for “non-life-threatening medical treatments including abortions.”

Reuters reported that Amazon’s decision to subsidize its employees’ abortions places the online mega-retailer on a growing list of large corporations with similar policies on the books. Citigroup Inc. and Yelp Inc. both announced that they would subsidize the abortion process for their employees in response to Republican-backed state laws limiting abortion access.

In a similar vein, the popular ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft previously vowed to cover the legal fees for drivers in Texas who encounter legal difficulties for driving women to abortion clinics, Fortune reported.

The company’s new benefit will have retroactive coverage and is available to both its U.S. employees and their covered dependents who are enrolled in either the Premera or Aetna health plans. The reimbursement benefits are available to employees at all levels of the company. Warehouse workers and executives alike can be reimbursed for expenses incurred in their pursuit of an abortion.

However, in order to qualify for the reimbursement, the individuals seeking to receive an abortion must travel more than 100 miles.

Amazon announced that it would start financing abortions the same day that it stopped offering U.S.-based employees paid time off when they get diagnosed with COVID-19.

On Monday, a draft decision indicating that the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the media.

The draft is of the court’s majority opinion and is written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. It is believed that the opinion had already circulated inside the court prior to it being leaked.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Alito continued.

The draft decision is related to an outstanding challenge against a piece of pro-life legislation out of Mississippi.

“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,” Alito concludes. “On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of common law until 1973.”

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