Tag: abortion

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Yelp update to warn consumers Crisis Pregnancy Centers aren’t abortion care providers

Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, companies have been bolstering efforts and navigating the legal landscape to provide care to birthing people. Yelp is now following suit. 

The company announced, in an exclusive first shared with Axios, that it will add a consumer notice to crisis pregnancy centers (CPC) to differentiate them from abortion clinics. The notice will notify users and read that these centers “typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.” According to Planned Parenthood, these centers do not provide abortion services and attempt to convince birthing people to not get an abortion. 

The change will apply to religious and nonreligious centers in the U.S. and Canada. 

“It has always felt unjust to me that there are clinics in the U.S. that provide misleading information or conduct deceptive tactics to steer pregnant people away from abortion care if that’s the path they choose to take,” said Noorie Malik, Yelp’s VP, to Axios.

Yelp is probably most commonly known for restaurant reviews but is also a source of information for all types of businesses. According to Axios, Yelp began distinguishing CPCs from abortion centers in 2018. Additionally, a Yelp spokesperson told TechCrunch that “businesses that do not offer actual abortion services and explicitly mention being faith-based or having some type of religious affiliation are categorized as ‘Faith-based Crisis Pregnancy Centers.’” Businesses that explicitly state that they are anti-abortion or pro-life, but without any public-facing information about being faith-based, are categorized as “Crisis Pregnancy Centers.”

Users will see the notice at the top of a company’s profile after clicking on its profile to get more information. Though, it must be noted that not everyone going to a CPC is seeking abortion services. 

Image Credits: Yelp

According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, a pro-abortion advocacy group, there were close to 2,500 CPCs across the country and 23 states have laws supporting CPCs in 2015. Additionally, some states provide public funding to CPCs. 

Yelp’s move is just one in the search engine world. Google, in 2019, updated its advertisement policy so companies that want to run ads with a focus on anti-abortion-related keywords have to disclose whether they provide abortion services or not. 

Additionally, Google Maps also labels if a clinic provides abortion services or is a “pregnancy care center.” However, there has been scrutiny around the CPC results on the platform that led Congress members to ask Google’s CEO to limit those results. 

Although the move by Yelp is meant to better aid those seeking pregnancy services, according to Malik, the company has not explicitly stated how they plan to better serve those individuals other than the notice. 

“For people specifically searching for abortion services, we’ve increased our efforts to better match them with reproductive health services that actually offer abortions and make it less likely they will see crisis pregnancy centers in their search results,” a Yelp spokesperson told TechCrunch.

This year, alone, the company has evaluated 33,500 businesses and recategorized 470 of them as CPCs. The company plans on further evaluating over 55,000 businesses across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

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Google workers call on the company to expand abortion and privacy protections

A group of more than 600 Google employees is pressing the company to expand worker health benefits, divest itself of some political ties and bolster user privacy in light of the Supreme Court decision to strip federal abortion rights.

The Google workers demanded the changes in a petition led by the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a labor union that formed last year at the company and now has around 1,100 members. The AWU advocates on behalf of both full-time employees and temporary workers, vendors and contractors (“TVCs”) at Google — a less visible slice of the company’s workforce that’s estimated to be more than 100,000 workers.

In the petition, the group of Google workers asks the company to broaden its reproductive healthcare travel assistance to cover its non-full-time workforce and to add additional sick days and more generous reimbursement stipends for that travel. The workers also request that the company expand its support and language around reproductive healthcare to include transgender and non-binary workers who aren’t women but might need the same services.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a number of companies announced that they would pay the costs associated with traveling across state lines to obtain an abortion. In an internal letter in late June, Google reaffirmed that its U.S. health benefits would cover out-of-state medical procedures not available to an employee in the state where they live.

“The conversation I’ve had, personally, with coworkers is definitely one of concern,” AWU member and Google Data Center Technician Bambi Okugawa told TechCrunch. “Many are anxious about their own wellbeing and financial hardships they may endure if they need to seek out reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare in other states without having the same safety net that full-time employees are offered.”

The petition also calls on Google to make a transparency report detailing how well the vendors that directly employ its contract workers comply with a set of enhanced standards for wages and benefits that include a provision for reproductive healthcare.

Google, Alphabet employees unionize

Beyond worker protections, the signees ask Google to take additional steps to protect the people who use its products “from having their data used against them,” like in the recent case of law enforcement wielding Facebook data to prosecute a Nebraska teen and her mother. The petition calls for Google to immediately implement new data privacy protections for any activity on the company’s products and platforms related to health.

“… For example, searching for reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information on Google must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime,” the petition states. It also calls on Google to prevent further instances of Maps search results pointing users toward anti-abortion centers instead of abortion providers after Bloomberg reported on the phenomenon.

“I feel if any tech company, be it Google, Facebook, Apple, etc., chooses to pride themselves on user privacy then they should back that up with actions aligned with that cause,” Okugawa told TechCrunch. “I feel this is a wonderful opportunity for Google to take initiative and be a role model to other tech companies to take user privacy seriously and really set the bar on superb user experience and relations.”

To implement the changes, the signees ask that Google form a dedicated task force akin to the team the company assembled to address the COVID-19 crisis.

The full text of the petition the AWU sent to Google executives is embedded below.

Protect our worker’s rights
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.

Alphabet has continued to make access to reproductive and gender affirming healthcare a “women’s issue” by only providing women@ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) with listening sessions, and using gendered language in their communication with workers when this is an issue that affects all of us.

In order to align with Google’s core values (go/3-google-values), we demand that Alphabet acknowledges the impact this Supreme Court ruling has on all its workers and to immediately do the following:

1. Protect all workers’ access to reproductive healthcare by setting a reproductive healthcare standard in the US Wages and Benefits Standards (go/alphabet-tvc-benefits-standards) including:

a. Extending the same travel-for-healthcare benefits offered to FTEs to TVCs.

b. Adding minimum of 7 days of additional sick time because workers will need to travel for significant periods to obtain health services.

c. Increasing FTE & TVC reimbursement amounts for travel to $150 per night. $50 is NOT a viable reimbursement for a hotel stay in most states, and does not address childcare or lost wages.

d. Publishing a TVC transparency report, detailing vendors’ compliance to the Alphabet/Google US Wages and Benefits Standards. For example, details on why certain roles are exempt, and timelines for vendors to come into compliance.

2. Protect our government from corporate influence. Alphabet must stop lobbying politicians and any political organizations, through NetPAC or any other means because these politicians were responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control.

3. Protect our users and customers from having their data used against them and addressing the disinformation and misleading information as it pertains to abortion services and other reproductive healthcare services on all Alphabet platforms and products by:

a. Instituting immediate user data privacy controls for all health-related activity, for example, searching for reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information on Google must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime.

b. Fixing misleading search results related to abortion services by removing results for fake abortion providers.

c. No longer working with publishers of disinformation related to abortion services who violate AdSense’s publishers policies related to unreliable and harmful claims about a major health crisis.

d. Providing transparency into ad revenue sharing with Google custom search so that abortion services that pay for Google ads don’t inadvertently have their ad revenue go to organizations that are actively working against them.

In order to meet these demands, we call on Alphabet to create a dedicated task-force with 50% employee representation, responsible for implementing changes across all products and our company, just like Alphabet did for handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers ask Facebook and Instagram to explain why they removed abortion posts

Tech companies respond to US Supreme Court abortion decision

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How digital health startups are navigating the post-Roe legal landscape

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, digital health and reproductive care startups bolstered their efforts to make abortion pills and emergency contraceptives more accessible. Now, as state laws shift and abortion bans go into effect across the United States, companies are still trying to find ways to provide care while reimagining what healthcare should include.

Following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe, many leading organizations focused on reproductive medicine have spoken out against the ruling. “Decisions about healthcare, particularly reproductive healthcare, should be made by patients and physicians, not by interest groups, religious organizations, politicians, pundits, or Supreme Court justices,” said Marcelle Cedars, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Nationally, the situation is proving tricky to navigate as each state can begin implementing individualized abortion laws. By November, 26 states are expected to face near-total abortion bans.

For that reason, TechCrunch checked in with digital health startups to learn how they intend to continue to offer reproductive care despite an increasingly hostile legal environment.

What do demand and restrictions look like?

In wake of the decision, there has been a national surge in demand for emergency contraception like Plan B, also known as the “morning after pill.”

In Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, South Dakota and Tennessee, a pharmacist can refuse to dispense an emergency contraceptive if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. In some states, the medication is also excluded from what is considered mandatory contraceptive coverage, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

But digital health companies, which provide care virtually, claim they are better able to avoid these limitations.

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Facebook helps cops prosecute 17-year-old for abortion

Meta provided user information to police in Nebraska that led directly to the prosecution of a 17-year-old girl for alleged crimes relating to an abortion, court documents show. The company could have challenged the legal order, but instead provided the teenager’s direct messages to cops, who are now charging the girl with three felonies for using a mail-order abortion pill and burying the miscarried fetus.

According to court documents first published by Motherboard (the case itself was first reported by the Lincoln Journal-Star), a Nebraska detective was investigating “concerns that a juvenile female… had given birth prematurely supposedly to a stillborn child.”

He apparently did not believe that the child was stillborn, though an autopsy (after exhuming the body seemingly without reason) was consistent with the story, showing that the fetus had never had air in its lungs. But because it was in a plastic bag, he asked Meta to provide all the girl’s Facebook messages, photos and other data for “statements that might indicate whether the baby was stillborn or asphyxiated.”

This information was duly provided, and messages appear to show the girl discussing taking an abortifacient medication. Based on this information, police raided the family’s home, seizing six smartphones and seven laptops, with data like internet history and emails totaling 24 gigabytes. Among this trove the investigators hope to find the evidence of a teenager ordering abortion pills.

Now the 17-year-old is being tried as an adult for performing an abortion after week 20 of pregnancy, performing an abortion without a license, concealing a dead body, concealing the death of a person and false reporting.

It must be pointed out that at no point before they received the messages from Facebook was there any evidence of a crime beyond improperly disposing of a miscarried fetus. The detective’s asphyxiation theory, based solely on the presence of a plastic bag, was incompatible with the autopsy evidence, which supported the girl’s account. Generally speaking, it seems cruel and unusual to conduct a multi-day investigation into a miscarriage and panicked disposal of remains.

Officially, the request for information pertained to “Prohibited Acts with Skeletal Remains,” though this was clearly a smokescreen for an investigation presupposing another crime without any evidence. One wonders whether other improper burials receive a similar level of care from the Norfolk police.

Facebook/Meta has challenged court orders for user information before. Facebook’s policy on challenging a request for user data is that if the request is not consistent with applicable law or their policies, or if it is legally deficient or overly broad, the company will challenge it or tailor the information it provides. (That’s why there are a lot of requests where “some data” is produced.)

Whether the data request authorities at Facebook were aware of these circumstances is unclear. I have asked the company for comment on its decision to hand over the data, as well as its intentions around other cases where its data may incriminate someone in states where abortion is illegal, and I will update this post if I hear back.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that this kind of data request can and now has led directly to prosecution of people for abortion. Some tech companies have taken measures to protect the privacy of those seeking the procedure, though most have carefully avoided taking a strong stance, and will not rule out complying with requests for such data. Apparently Facebook placed itself in the latter camp.

8 ways the tech industry can step up to protect abortion rights

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After Roe’s reversal, founders of women’s health startups prepare for battle

Advocates and organizers had been preparing for Roe v. Wade to be overturned since the U.S. Supreme Court draft decision leaked in early May. But Nadya Okamoto, co-founder of period care company August, still felt heartbroken when the decision became official in late June.

“One of the things that always made me passionate about policy and legislative action was that it always felt so permanent,” she told TechCrunch. “For Roe to be rolled back went against many of the beliefs I had about change and social progress.”

Activists like Okamoto are now on the front lines of once again protesting for an individual’s right to an abortion. As a startup founder, Okamoto said she’s ready to use her platform and position to help educate and influence others — and she’s not alone.

Many women founders running reproductive health companies are taking battle stances as the U.S. slips into a reality worse than what existed pre-Roe. Come November, 26 states face a near-total abortion ban.

The decision to reverse Roe also paves the way for the erosion of other rights, such as those that gave the right to interracial and gay marriage.

For this reason, TechCrunch conducted another vibe check, this time with the women founders taking themselves and their companies to the front lines of the fight for abortion. Okamoto and some of the others admit they never thought they would see themselves here; at the same time, it feels as if they’ve been preparing their whole life to take up this fight.

“It’s a privilege to have a platform,” Okamoto said. “That privilege should be reconciled by using said platform to do something important.”

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Roe’s reversal will shake up how startups are built

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: How does Roe’s reversal impact the ways that companies are built?

The question was inspired by a recent TechCrunch+ column, “Roe reversal weighs heavily on emerging tech cities in red states.” The reporters behind the piece, Dominic-Madori Davis and Becca Szkutak, joined Equity to talk about the story and help us get more of the nuance behind this huge setback.

We chatted about the reappearance of geographic boundaries, selective silence from the money behind the money, and how founders need to rethink their growth strategy if they’re coming from red states. We also chatted about how some founders have already started to react to the overturn of Roe vs. Wade and their sentiments revolving the legality of what happens next.

Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

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Lawmakers ask Facebook and Instagram to explain why they removed abortion posts

In a letter to Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren expressed alarm that abortion-related content is receiving strange treatment on Meta’s platforms.

Just after the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, Motherboard found that posts offering to provide abortion pills were being removed from Facebook within seconds of being posted. The Associated Press observed similar posts about abortion pills vanishing from Instagram “within moments.” Instagram also hid some abortion-related content behind warning screens, behavior that the company described as a “bug” but didn’t explain further.

The senators went into some detail about the abortion-related posts and accounts Meta removed:

“Reports indicate that multiple posts providing accurate information about how to legally access abortion services were removed, often within minutes after the information was posted. Others reported that posts mentioning abortion were taken down or were tagged with “sensitivity screens” and warnings, including a post promoting an abortion documentary, a posting entitled “Abortion in America How You Can Help,” and a post from a healthcare worker describing how people were already being harmed by laws banning abortion. One organization dedicated to informing people in the United States about their abortion rights temporarily had its account suspended. Users reported similar issues last fall when Texas’s law banning abortions after six weeks went into effect.”

In a Twitter reply, Meta Policy Communications Director Andy Stone noted that the company’s policies do not allow transactions of prescription drugs, but did not explain the enforcement discrepancy between the abortion pill posts and posts offering to provide other prescription drugs.

Klobuchar and Warren are requesting “additional information about what Meta is doing to address problems applying company policies” — information that could explain Meta’s conspicuously aggressive handling of the abortion-related content.

The senators are asking Meta for answers to a number of questions that the company hasn’t been transparent about on the topic, including how many abortion-related posts it has removed since June 24, how many of those posts have been reinstated and what training materials about abortion the company provides to its content moderators. The requests have a deadline of July 15.

Facebook and Instagram are removing posts offering to mail abortion pills

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Biden order fortifies data privacy ahead of state-by-state legal battle over abortion

An executive order signed by President Biden places the White House’s weight firmly behind states where access to abortion is guaranteed, urging the FTC and other executive entities to examine and reinforce data protection policies. Without a digital trail to follow, attempts to criminalize private medical activity across borders may prove far more difficult.

The legal battles ahead over reproductive rights in the post-Roe era will likely be complex and unprecedented, and data will be an important part of them. As a medical procedure, abortion is covered under the federal patient privacy law HIPAA, but that will likely conflict with state rules demanding disclosure. Furthermore, digital services like period-tracking apps and even fitness and wellness platforms may track and even sell data that could be incriminating.

The executive order fundamentally limited in what it can achieve (as many will recall, Trump issued dozens to little effect), but it does emphasize which and where federal resources will be deployed in the legal conflicts to come. The full text of the EO is here, but let’s look at the portions most immediately relevant to the tech industry. (Quoted text is very lightly edited for brevity.)

First, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will issue a report…

…identifying ways to increase outreach and education about access to reproductive healthcare services, including by launching a public awareness initiative to provide timely and accurate information about such access, which shall…

share information about how to obtain free or reduced cost reproductive healthcare services through Health Resources and Services Administration-Funded Health Centers, Title X clinics, and other providers; and…

include promoting awareness of and access to the full range of contraceptive services, as well as know-your-rights information for those seeking or providing reproductive healthcare services

This is clearly directed at attempts to limit the information available to people seeking care; some states plan to make it difficult to know what options are actually available, whether it’s legal to travel to another state for a procedure or medication (it is), and so on. While the feds can’t force, say, a state health agency to provide information on where to get abortion pills or the like, they can ensure that this information is available in the state through other means. They may even get a foot in the door with hospitals and clinics that take federal funding.

While that may seem elementary (of course the federal government can put whatever it wants on its own sites), the real goal here is enumerating the ways that states will attempt to control information and how best to counteract those.

Next, federal entities including the Attorney General and Homeland Security will “consider actions” to address new safety and security risks associated with providing or seeking reproductive care.

To address the potential threat to patient privacy caused by the transfer and sale of sensitive health-related data and by digital surveillance related to reproductive healthcare services, and to protect people seeking reproductive health services from fraudulent schemes or deceptive practices:

The Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is encouraged to consider actions… to protect consumers’ privacy when seeking information about and provision of reproductive healthcare services.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall consider actions, including providing guidance under [HIPAA], and any other statutes as appropriate, to strengthen the protection of sensitive information related to reproductive healthcare services and bolster patient-provider confidentiality.

The first part of this is clearly a warning to major tech companies like Google and Meta, which have means and opportunity to track people’s behavior down a disturbingly granular level. We’ve all read horror stories about people seeing ads for baby products before they’ve announced they’re pregnant. Now imagine if a state required a company to disclose if a user had discussed or was algorithmically categorized as seeking an abortion.

Congress probes period tracking apps and data brokers over abortion privacy concerns

Protecting people from “fraudulent schemes” seems less an issue than the everyday trade in potentially sensitive information to the likes of data brokers. The FTC may very well issue guidance on this issue pertaining to claims of “privacy” that are not borne out by a company’s actual practices.

The HIPAA part is a difficult one, as there will almost certainly be a direct conflict between federal non-disclosure laws and state forced-disclosure laws that will have to be worked out in court. While that is likely to be a years-long conflict and speculation upon its outcome would be fruitless at this stage, in states where abortion remains legal it may be simpler.

Health and Human Services is likely to issue guidance and interpretation of HIPAA regulations that favor privacy in a fashion specifically tailored to spoiling cross-border requests. If state law and federal law stack up to protect a patient’s privacy, suits and requests from states looking to criminalize behavior in neighboring jurisdictions may be non-starters.

The next section adds to this in that the AG will provide “technical assistance” to states on the matter of protection out-of-state patients, which is as much as saying “let’s write that law together.”

To some, this executive order will appear to be something of a nothingburger; and indeed if this is all the administration can bring to bear after weeks of inaction, that is justifiably disappointing to those urging more concrete action. But although it accomplishes little on its own, it clearly shows the administration’s intent to, at the very least, stand behind states fighting to protect reproductive rights rather than those curtailing them.

8 ways the tech industry can step up to protect abortion rights

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Facebook and Instagram are removing posts offering to mail abortion pills

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, some Facebook and Instagram users planning to help distribute legal abortion pills are finding themselves censored.

According to a Motherboard report, users on Friday began seeing Facebook remove posts offering to mail abortion pills — the same day that the Supreme Court issued the ruling.

Remarkably, Facebook’s moderation on the issue was so aggressive that users saw their posts removed within seconds. One user observed that their account was suspended after a post that read “I will mail abortion pills to any one of you. Just message me.”

Motherboard was able to replicate the phenomenon, also earning a 24-hour account suspension in the process. The key phrase for automated removal appears to be “abortion pills” as other posts with other combination of terms didn’t flag the platform’s moderation systems.

The Associated Press reported similar behavior on Instagram, with some users seeing their posts offering to support others in obtaining abortion pills removed “within moments.” The AP made a test post repeating the message about abortion pills and also saw the message removed in less than a minute.

Meta Policy Communications Director Andy Stone addressed in a Twitter reply reports of both platforms censoring posts about abortion pills, noting that the company’s policies do not allow transactions of prescription drugs.

Stone admitted that Meta found “some instances of incorrect enforcement” of its rules, though declined to clarify in more detail. He did not explain why posts with the phrase “abortion pills” saw such swift enforcement, even while other prohibited content about guns, pain pills and cannabis did not.

Stone cited Meta’s rules on restricted goods and services, which prohibit efforts to buy, sell or trade pharmaceuticals except in cases where “legitimate healthcare e-commerce businesses” offer delivery.

Instagram also tweeted Tuesday that some users were seeing “sensitivity screens” hiding posts that shouldn’t be hidden. The company called the behavior a bug and confirmed to TechCrunch that it was related to user reports about abortion-related content being censored. A Meta spokesperson noted that posts about abortion aren’t the only topic affected by the “bug,” but did not name other kinds of content that were affected.

With the aftershocks of the Supreme Court’s Roe decision beginning to reverberate, prescription abortion pills are poised to be a topic of extreme controversy. The White House issued a fact sheet on Friday noting the administration’s plans to defend access to mifepristone, which has been FDA approved to end pregnancy for over two decades.

The fact sheet mentioned that the Biden administration would work with Health and Human Services to “identify all ways” to maximize access to mifepristone, including through telehealth and the mail. As the legal status of mifepristone faces potential future state-level challenges, Biden’s Department of Justice could also become involved.

“And we stand ready to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “… States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”

Tech companies respond to US Supreme Court abortion decision

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Tech companies respond to U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision on abortion today, overturning Roe v. Wade in declarding that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to abortion. While the outcome was expected — a draft decision leaked months ago — the implications for the broader tech industry are only starting to become clear.

In the 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution “makes no reference to abortion” and that “no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” Writing the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito — joined by the court’s other conservative justices, including Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — tossed out Roe as well as a Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights.

At issue in the case that triggered today’s ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was a Mississippi law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Over 20 states, anticipating Roe’s demise, drafted similar laws banning or severely restriction abortion and signaled their intent to enforce them once the Supreme Court’s decision was made final.

TechCrunch reached out to several major companies, including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, for their responses.

Microsoft, via a spokesperson, said that it will “do everything [it] can under the law”  to support its employees and their dependents in accessing healthcare regardless of where they live across the U.S. Prior to the decision, the company included services like abortion and “gender-affirming” care in its health plans — and this won’t change. Microsoft says it will also continue to pays travel expense assistance for “lawful medical services” where access to care is “limited in availability in an employee’s home geographic region.”

EBay told TechCrunch that, effective June 8, 2022, it expanded benefits so employees and their beneficiaries can be reimbursed to travel in the U.S. to receive access to abortion treatment if it’s not available locally. The company says that the process will be managed through its healthcare carriers to maintain confidentiality.

“EBay has always been committed to providing our employees with full, fair, and timely access to healthcare. Our programs have long included benefits for reproductive health, gender affirmation treatments, and other healthcare services,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch via email.

Elsewhere, Momentive (formerly SurveyMonkey) told employees Friday that it will cover employee and dependent costs for travel for abortion, infertility, and gender-affirming care. Netflix and Twilio, too, plan to pay for employees forced to travel to receive abortions; Twilio said it will make a $100,000 donation to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“Netflix offers a travel reimbursement coverage for U.S. full-time employees and their dependents who need to travel for cancer treatment, transplants, gender affirming care, or abortion through our U.S. health plans,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “This is a $10,000 lifetime allowance per employee and/or their dependents per service.”

Twitter declined to comment.

A number of tech companies offered comparable policies prior to the Supreme Court’s decision. Box, which in a statement said that it was “disappointed” in today’s outcome, offers paid time off and travel and medical expenses for “critical reproductive healthcare services.” Apple’s benefits cover costs needed to travel out of state for medical care. And Salesforce gives employees the option to relocate if they or family members are impacted by laws restricting their access to reproductive healthcare.

Bumble and The Match Group, which owns dating apps like Hinge and Match.com, have publicly stated that they’re setting up funds to cover costs for Texas-based employees who need to travel for abortion care. (Bumble, which is headquartered in Austin, says that it will make additional contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Planned Parenthood Federation of America in addition.) HP has said its health plans cover abortion and helps employees seek out-of-state care. And both Lyft and Uber have pledged to create legal defense funds in the event any Texas- or Oklahoma-based drivers are penalized for transporting a pregnant person to an appointment for an abortion.

Both Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase pay for travel to states that allow abortion. So does Tesla, Yelp, and Amazon, the latter of which has offered to cover up to $4,000 a year in travel expenses for employees seeking “non-threatening” medical care including abortions.

It’s important to note, of course, that many companies — even those publicly supporting abortion rights or offering benefits to that effect — have donated to campaigns advocating for abortion restrictions. As Slate recently reported, Citigroup has given over $6.2 million to the Republican Party and nearly half a million to various GOP candidates in Texas alone. Yelp, Uber, and Lyft have also contributed tens of thousand of dollars combined to anti-abortion lawmakers over the last few years.