Nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies offer paid out-of-state travel for abortions, and many encourage options like egg freezing and in vitro fertilization to financially optimize their female employees.A report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) shows that while some pro-family policies have been adopted at top corporations, the balance weighs heavily in favor of delaying or destroying families.
Be informed, not misled.
Being pro-family is saying no to abortion.
The report says:
“In addition to offering praiseworthy parental-leave policies and assistance with the costs of adoption or child care, a significant number of these corporations have simultaneously begun promoting and incentivizing options such as surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, egg freezing, and travel for abortions — options that encourage female employees in particular to postpone or even forego motherhood in order to advance in their careers. Real support for women in the workplace would prioritize reincorporating female employees who have left the workforce for a time to care for children, offering greater flexibility to working fathers so they can be more present to their families, and making as much room as possible for mothers to take on flexible part-time or remote work.”
The study lists the current top 100 corporations in America...1. Walmart, 2. Amazon, 3. Apple. Etc.
It also gives an overview of what each company provides in relation to the family.
According to the report, at least 42 Fortune 100 companies have publicly touted their offer to pay for out-of-state abortion travel; two others “strongly suggest” they have the coverage. The report noted that not all companies are transparent with their offerings and that the total number is “probably an undercount as coverage for abortion travel expenses is likely to become standard in many healthcare plans” under general provisions.
The report notes that while companies might offer full coverage for abortion and travel, they will only offer a percentage of the cost for things like adoption.
Amazon is an example.
The Federalist notes, "Amazon, for example, will pay up to $4,000 for abortion travel expenses if it is not available within 100 miles of the employee’s home. That cost is more than enough to cover flights, hotels, and other accommodations on top of the roughly $600 it takes to buy an abortion."
Meanwhile, Amazon only offers $5,000 reimbursement for a single-child adoption, where costs could be anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 through an agency, or $25,000 to $45,000 independently, the report noted.
“Strikingly, the companies that offer the most robust family benefits and that are most transparent about those benefits are also more likely to have announced coverage for abortion and abortion-related travel expenses,” the report states.
Corporations are apparently trying to attract female employees by offering a wide range of options for what they might call family planning and healthcare, the report notes, adding, “The corporate standard of generosity when it comes to parenthood and especially motherhood appears to be offering maximum flexibility: coverage for contraception and abortion when children are undesired, parental leave and adoption assistance when employees want children, and fertility coverage to assist those who want children but either cannot have them naturally or perhaps want to try to preserve their fertility via technology.”
Some considerations.
As the Washington Examiner reported, policies like abortion travel, egg freezing, and IVF are often more about extracting the most amount of work out of a female employee while keeping them under the guise that they have signed up for a company that is protecting their ability to have children — as soon as they are ready for it.
University of Virginia sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox told The Examiner, however, that “as soon as they are ready” can often mean never, adding that the policy’s “incentive is to maximize the worker’s time and commitment to the job and minimize their investments in their own family including when it comes to having family in the first place.”
“The employer is basically trying to get the employee to kick the can down the road so that in the moment they’re fully attached to the job,” Wilcox continued. “But the consequence of this is that the longer you wait to have kids, the more likely it is you won’t have them. These are the kinds of policies that are helping to explain why, you know, the fertility rate in the U.S. is at a record low.”
Interestingly, even the New York Times pointed out that the study added that “the efficacy of egg freezing and subsequent IVF procedures is uncertain, and the results are often disappointing — and that is in addition to the moral and ethical concerns involved in IVF and (possible) surrogacy.”
The Bible and family.
The concept of family is extremely important in the Bible, both in a physical and theological sense. The concept of family was introduced in the beginning, as we see in Genesis 1:28, "God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" God’s plan for creation was for men and women to marry and have children. A man and a woman would form a "one-flesh" union through marriage (Genesis 2:24), and they with their children become a family, the essential building block of human society.
This is an excellent summary of a biblical worldview about family.
- We also see early on that family members were to look after and care for one another. When God asks Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" Cain’s response is the flippant, "Am I my brother’s keeper?"
- The Bible has a more communal sense of people and family than is generally held in Western cultures today, where citizens are more individualized than people in the Middle East and definitely more so than the people of the ancient Near East. When God saved Noah from the flood, it wasn’t an individual case of salvation but a salvation for him, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives.
- The importance of family is evident in the provisions of the Mosaic covenant. For example, two of the Ten Commandments deal with maintaining family cohesiveness.
- The New Testament contains many of the same commands and prohibitions. In Matthew 19, Jesus speaks on the sanctity of marriage and against frivolous divorce. The apostle Paul talks about what Christian homes should look like when he gives the twin commands of “children, obey your parents” and “parents, don’t provoke your children” in Ephesians 6:1–4 and Colossians 3:20–21.
It has been said, "You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Hopeful. Be Prayerful.