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Yelp will help employees pay for out-of-state abortions

Apr 13, 2022

By Dave Andrusko

Starting next month, Yelp, the online search and review platform, will “offer employees and their dependents financial assistance through their insurance if they need to travel out-of-state for abortion care,” the New York Times reported. 

According to Miriam Warren, the company’s chief diversity officer,  employees will be able to submit receipts for travel expenses directly to their health insurance company. “So no one else at Yelp is ever going to know who is accessing this, or how or when, and it will be a reimbursement that comes through the insurance provider directly,” she said. Yelp employs over 4,000 people.

Yelp joins companies including Citigroup Inc., Bumble Inc., Match Group Inc., Apple and Levi Strauss & Co., Uber, and Lyft, in defraying expenses incurred in traveling out of state to abort.

Texas’s Heartbeat Law is often cited as the reason for companies to take sides on abortion. S.J.8 protects unborn children whose hearts have begun to beat, usually around six weeks. Three other states have passed laws which protect unborn children at the end of the 15th week with more expected to pass.

“Last month, Citigroup became the first major bank to disclose that it will pay travel costs for employees affected by the law in Texas, where it has over 8,000 workers,” according to Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Lauren Hirsch.

Yelp, and perhaps others, not only will facilitate abortion, they will also direct women away from Pregnancy Help Centers.

“Yelp’s travel benefit is part of its longer-term efforts on abortion access,” the New York Times reported. “In 2018, the company said it would do more to make sure Yelp users clearly understood the difference between abortion clinics and ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ which aim to steer people away from terminating a pregnancy.”

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute applauded the activism.

 “It does feel like there is an opening here for companies to really step in and step up,” said Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate on state issues at the Guttmacher Institute. “You need a real groundswell of support.”

Meanwhile, “State Rep. Briscoe Cain said he sent a cease-and-desist letter to Citigroup’s chief executive in March over its policy,” Jennifer Calfas and Allison Prang of The Wall Street Journal. “In his letter, the Republican said he would introduce legislation that would prevent Texas localities from working with companies that provide coverage for abortion or pay for abortion-related expenses, like travel.”

Categories: Abortion
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