Apple responds to Roe v. Wade rollback, company benefits cover out-of-state travel for reproductive care
Apple employees can use their company benefits to travel out-of-state to receive medical care, the company confirmed on Friday. The benefit has been available to employees for over 10 years, the company said.
The statement comes as corporations around the country, including Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are committing to pay for employees to travel to receive abortions if they are in states where it is banned after the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, rolling back the federal right to receive an abortion.
“As we’ve said before, we support our employees’ rights to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive health. For more than a decade, Apple’s comprehensive benefits have allowed our employees to travel out-of-state for medical care if it is unavailable in their home state,” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC.
In September, Apple said in an internal memo that it was monitoring legal proceedings about abortion laws in Texas, and said at the time that the company’s benefits give employees the ability to get medical care out-of-state if it’s unavailable in their home state.
Separately, the decision overturning Roe v. Wade has highlighted health apps and the concern over the data they collect, such as menstrual cycle tracking, which some advocates say could be used to prosecute people who seek abortions in states where it is illegal.
Apple’s Health app does have a cycle tracking feature, and if data is uploaded to Apple’s servers for backup and the user has two-factor authentication on, then it’s encrypted, meaning that Apple cannot read the data.
