Gretchen Harders, Member of the Firm in the Employee Benefits practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in Observer, in “After Roe, Which Companies Will Offer Abortion Benefits?” by Courtney Vinopal.
Following is an excerpt:
Some firms… are offering to pay travel and medical costs for workers seeking abortions, but legal questions surrounding such benefits remain complex. …
A number of companies are announcing plans to expand healthcare for workers seeking abortions in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Constitutional right to end a pregnancy. …
Though it’s not uncommon for U.S. companies to cover travel if workers are seeking a medical procedure that’s not available close to where they live, firms expanding abortion healthcare will have to take myriad legal considerations into account. As the liberal Supreme Court justices noted in their dissent, the decision creates a legal pathway for states to “block women from traveling out of state to obtain abortions,” as well as “criminalize efforts, including the provision of information or funding, to help women gain access to other states’ abortion services.”
“There may be a risk to employers who add travel expenses for abortion services under state abortion bans that include liability for aiding and abetting violations of the abortion ban,” said Gretchen Harders, an employee benefits attorney with the law firm Epstein Becker Green.