- Without Roe v. Wade, abortion will automatically be criminalized in 13 states with "trigger laws."
- Top employers in those states including Walmart, McDonald's, and Amazon may face a crisis around recruitment, turnover, and health care.
- The Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs, top public employers, have created no plans for the potential end of Roe.
This story is part of an investigative series from Insider examining the demise of abortion rights in so-called "trigger law" states. It was originally published on June 2, 22 days before the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that abortion is no longer a constitutionally protected right. Read all the stories from "The First 13" here.
If the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade in June — considered all but certain since a draft decision was leaked May 2 — major US companies may find themselves facing shock waves inside their organizations. But most companies appear unprepared for what's to come.
Insider has identified the companies that would face the most immediate impact: those with the largest workforces in states with "trigger laws," where abortion bans would automatically take effect if the court strikes down Roe. Thousands of their employees may soon be facing unintended pregnancies without access to abortion care. Over two-thirds of Americans want to uphold Roe v. Wade, and the majority support women having access to legal abortion for any reason, per a recent Wall Street Journal poll.
Walmart, McDonald's, Amazon, the Department of Defense, and Roark Capital Group, a private-equity firm that owns Arby's, Dunkin', and the Cheesecake Factory, top the list, as they are among the largest employers in all 13 trigger-law states.
"Sanford Health is carefully evaluating the potential impact a final Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade would have on our healthcare providers and the patients we serve across the rural Midwest," Jeremy Cauwels, the chief physician at Sanford Health, told Insider in a statement. "Ensuring the health and well-being of our Sanford Health family is our utmost priority."
In some instances, healthcare employers could be also looking at a more mobilized, politically charged workforce. Erica Bland-Durosinmi is the executive vice president for SEIU Healthcare, which represents some 90,000 frontline healthcare workers — most of whom are women — in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Missouri, a trigger-law state. Few union members are talking about leaving Missouri, she said. Instead, conversations center on how to support protecting access to "legal, safe abortions."
"People are very tied to their communities," Bland-Durosinmi said. "We're no strangers to fights and protests and standing up in the streets and fighting in the legislative halls to make sure that people have rights that they deserve."
Even companies outside the healthcare field may soon face a complex calculus in strategizing how to provide consistent coverage to their employees. More than half of Americans get their health coverage through their jobs; now companies may face the prospect of adjusting their healthcare offerings, state by state, with regard to abortion access.
"The vast differences in the types of available abortion coverage will lead to uneven access for many employees, public and private alike," Osub Ahmed, the associate director for women's health and rights at the Center for American Progress, told Insider by email. "It also will impose a significant administrative burden on employers, who will need to sort through complicated billing questions."
Lauren Hoffman, a colleague of Ahmed's who is the associate director for women's economic security, predicts that companies such as Yelp, Citi, and Amazon, which have announced that they will cover abortion-related travel costs, may run into "retaliation from politicians who do not support abortion." With a raft of copycat bills modeled after Texas's SB 8, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who assists a pregnant person in obtaining an abortion, Hoffman said employers could face legal liability, including "harassing lawsuits," if they decide to assist employees in getting abortions out of state.
Yet Alpern said companies should not assume bold policies will incur the wrath of radical anti-abortion forces without a careful risk assessment.
"I want to give credit to the companies that really have gone out on a limb in this environment," she said. "Although I think most of these companies think that the limb is a lot shakier than it really is."
"Companies should move forward as a group," Alpern added. "That's one way to blunt a lot of negative feedback, blowback, or protests from the extremist side."
Additional reporting by Nicole Einbinder and Abbie Shull.
