Yelp says it will cover travel expenses of employees who are unable to have abortions in their home states

A pro-choice demonstrator holds a sign reading "Keep Abortion Legal" outside the US Supreme Court in November 2006
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Yelp joins a growing corporate response to restrictive abortion laws in the US.
The company told Insider it wants to ensure its workers have equitable access to reproductive care.
A number of states in recent months have passed laws restricting abortion access.

Yelp has become the latest firm to offer support to employees living in US states where access to abortion is restricted, announcing that it will cover travel costs for staff to have the procedure.

The online review platform said it is expanding its health insurance policy, which already covered abortion care, to allow employees to receive expenses for travel to another state to get an abortion, the company told Insider.

"As a remote-first company with a distributed workforce, this new benefit allows our US employees and their dependents to have equitable access to reproductive care, regardless of where they live," Miriam Warren, Yelp's chief diversity officer, told Insider.

Conservative legislators have for years been vying at the state level to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in 1973, and a number of states have recently introduced new abortion legislation.

Oklahoma this week signed a bill into law that would ban nearly all abortions in the state, while Texas in September made it illegal to carry out an abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. In March, Idaho adopted a law, modeled on the Texas legislation, that banned abortions after about six weeks.

"We've long been a strong advocate for equality in the workplace, and believe that gender equality cannot be achieved if women's healthcare rights are restricted," Warren said.

Yelp joins a growing corporate response to abortion laws in the US. Last month, Citi became the first major bank to also offer to pay for employees to travel to access abortion, while Tinder's parent company, Match Group, created a fund to help any affected Texas-based staff seek help out of state.

Meanwhile, ride-hailing firms Lyft and Uber said they would pay the legal costs incurred by any drivers as a result of Texas' legislation, which allows for anyone who transports a woman to receive an abortion after six weeks of gestation to be sued.

Read the original article on Business Insider