Apple offers to pay Texas employees to travel outside the state to get abortions

Tech giant Apple will pay for their Texas employees to seek abortions outside the state, the The New York Times reported Friday.

According to the Times, Apple chief executive Tim Cook addressed the issue at an employee-only meeting on September 17, in which he said the corporation would assist Texas employees with obtaining abortions now illegal in the state.

As reported by MSN, the meeting was broadcast to all of the Big Tech giant’s roughly 160,000 employees worldwide.

Responding to questions from employees regarding how Apple planned to respond to Texas’ sweeping restrictions on abortions enacted earlier this month, Cook said Apple’s medical insurance would cover out-of-state abortions sought by employees who live and work in the Lone Star State.

Cook also insinuated that the global Big Tech organization would consider inserting itself into the legal battle against the pro-life law.

“Mr. Cook said that the company was looking into whether it could aid the legal fight against the new law and that its medical insurance would help pay for Apple workers in Texas if they needed to travel to other states for an abortion,” the Times reported, noting that it had obtained a recording of the employee-only meeting.

Texas’ new legislation, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, criminalizes abortions committed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (usually around six weeks’ gestation).

Since a heartbeat is often detectable before a women knows she is pregnant, the new law effectively bans nearly all abortions in the state.

The so-called “heartbeat law” took effect September 1 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to respond to efforts by pro-abortion lobbyists to block it.

It’s estimated the law will prevent 85% of abortions in a state that routinely sees in excess of 50,000 abortions a year...

Ride-share companies Lyft and Uber also announced they would pay legal fees if drivers employed by the companies are sued for taking women to abortion facilities in violation of Texas law.

MSN also noted that offering to pay legal fees, fund relocations outside the state, or use medical insurance to cover travel to obtain abortions are not the only methods used by Big Tech giants to throttle the Texas law.

The news outlet observed that web domain hosting corporation GoDaddy moved to deplatform a website run by Texas Right to Life, which provided a means by which people could submit tips about babies with beating hearts being aborted in the state so that legal action might be pursued.