Over 650 Google employees signed a petition seeking more generous abortion tourism benefits from the technology company.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — the 1973 opinion which purported that abortion is a constitutional right — earlier this year, Google Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi told staff that the firm would cover out-of-state abortions and allow employees to “apply for relocation without justification.” Nevertheless, members of the Alphabet Workers Union endorsed a petition demanding that the company expand the benefits to temporary employees, vendors, and contractors.
Among other policies, the petition calls for seven days of additional sick time “because workers will need to travel for significant periods to obtain health services,” greater travel reimbursements, and the end of political donations to lawmakers who oppose abortion. The document also expressed concern over the company’s choice to call abortion a “women’s issue” and use “gendered language” in communications with workers.
“We, the undersigned, recognize that all Alphabet workers, of all genders, are impacted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade and are disappointed in Alphabet’s response and influence on this ruling,” the petition said.
Bambi Okugawa, a Google data center technician in Tennessee, told CNBC that some of her colleagues are worried ahead of the state’s pending ban on abortion, which will apply after six weeks gestation. “Some told me they have been seeking sterilization options because they know there won’t be access to abortions in the state,” she said to the outlet.
The petition likewise called on Google to limit “misleading search results” that direct users to “fake abortion providers” — a possible reference to nonprofit pregnancy resource centers that seek to aid mothers who need material assistance to keep their babies.
Arguing that “you should not be able to torture a pregnant person” by offering them help, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently suggested that pregnancy centers should be investigated and closed. “In Massachusetts right now, those crisis pregnancy centers that are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help outnumber true abortion clinics by three to one,” she told NBC 10 Boston. “We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts and we need to shut them down all around the country.”
Beyond Google, companies such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss, Amazon, and Apple have launched abortion tourism policies. Yelp Chief Diversity Officer Miriam Warren recently explained that her company’s offering has been a “wonderful recruiting tool in terms of prospective employees saying, ‘I want to work at a company that is out there and loud about what they believe in, and what they care about.’”
The end of Roe v. Wade has also motivated Planned Parenthood to channel an “influx of support” toward a $50 million spending campaign for the upcoming midterm elections in Georgia, Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Planned Parenthood branches will also run campaigns in Colorado, California, Maine, Ohio, and Florida.
“This is an election about power and control,” Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Jenny Lawson said in a statement. “Should these out-of-touch politicians gain or stay in power, they will continue doing everything they can to ban all abortion, throw health care providers and pregnant people in jail, and endanger the health and lives of pregnant people across the country.”