American tech companies want to help their employees have an abortion

The US Supreme Court decision to overturn the 1973 ruling known as Roe v. Wade, who was protecting the decision to terminate a pregnancy, rocked the United States on Friday. A draft decision circulated in May anticipated the outcome of the federal judges' vote. Now the right to abortion has in fact been canceled in the country: the legislation in this regard passes completely into the hands of the states, many of which, led by conservative governments, have already banned the practice. According to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institut e, abortion could become completely illegal in twenty-six states.

Executives and CEOs of big tech companies were quick to react to the news.

"This is a sad day. Toppling Roe v. Wade is an unfair and unacceptable step backwards. And it puts the lives of women at risk, especially those in the most disadvantaged," said Bill Gates in a tweet.

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Even Meta's resigning COO, Sheryl Sandberg, expressed herself in a long post on Facebook: “I never thought my mother's past would become my daughters' future. I can't believe I'll send my three daughters to college with fewer rights than I had. "

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Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's vice president of human resources, recalls that the company has always supported the decisions of dependent on their sexual and reproductive health. "For more than a decade, Apple's benefits have enabled people to travel outside their state to receive medical treatment if this is not possible in their home state," he wrote in an Instagram post.

Google's human resources executive Fiona Cicconi sent an email to all staff reminding them that, in addition to covering out-of-state travel expenses, the company also accepts requests for transfers without justification.

Among the companies that offer the option of going outside the state borders to practice abortion, there are also Amazon, Meta and Tesla. The latter, in December 2021, had moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, one of the states where termination of pregnancy is completely illegal. Elon Musk has not made any statements on the matter. At the moment the Tesla CEO profile shows a tweet set high complaining about the low birth rate in the United States.

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Despite the statements in recent days, the role of the technology companies in the affair is rather ambiguous. The data and information collected by apps and websites - search engine queries, location data, or data from femtech applications, such as those for tracking the menstrual cycle, can be sold to third parties. Consequently, sensitive information regarding reproductive choices (including that of terminating a pregnancy) can be acquired by anti-choice groups, or by law enforcement agencies, and consequently used in legal proceedings.