Wall Street has adopted policies to fund travel for abortions for employees that work in states that impose restrictions in anticipation of or following the Supreme Court’s declaration that the constitution is neutral on the subject.
In memoranda to employees, both J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America said they would pay for abortion-related travel for employees in states that restrict abortion. Citigroup announced a similar policy in March.
CNBC reported that the J.P. Morgan memo was dated June 1, around one month after a leaked draft of an opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was published by Politico.
In a question-and-answer web page linked to the June 1 memo, the bank directly addressed whether it was covering abortion, as well as out-of-state travel to have the procedure.
“Will you pay for an employee to travel to another state to seek an abortion if their state won’t allow them to get one?” the bank said.
“Yes. Our health care plans have historically covered travel benefits for certain covered services that would require travel,” JPMorgan said. “Beginning in July, we will expand this benefit to include all covered services that can only be obtained far from your home, which would include legal abortion.”
Citigroup had already been reported to have plans to fund employee travel for abortions.
“While we are still assessing the impact of the Supreme Court decision and are aware that some states may enact new legislation regarding reproductive rights, we will continue to provide benefits that support our colleagues’ family planning choices wherever we are legally permitted to do so,” Sara Wechter of Citigroup said in a memo to employees Friday, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg reported that Goldman’s memo said it will extend its “health-care travel reimbursement policies to include all medical procedures, treatments and evaluations, including abortion services and gender-affirming care where a provider is not available in proximity to where our people live.”
Bank of America also told employees it will expand the list of procedures eligible for travel funding to include abortion.
Citigroup, Goldman, and J.P. Morgan are New York based, a state that is not expected to impose any new restrictions on abortion. All three, however, have employees based in many states across America. Bank of America is based in North Carolina and also has employees throughout the U.S.
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