Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) are taking advantage of a proposed initiative of the Federal Department of Labor (DOL) to push for more pro-abortion policies.
Recently, the Biden Administration proposed a new regulation that would implement stricter limitations on the classification of workers as independent contractors. This regulation is meant to protect workers from being taken advantage of by companies who want to avoid giving them the benefits of a regular employees. Warren and Bush wrote a letter to the DOL in support of this stricter regulation, because it would allow for more employees to receive reimbursement for abortion-related services. This letter specifically addresses covering the cost of travel to obtain an abortion.
After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, many states implemented laws protecting preborn children, meaning that some women seeking abortions would have to travel to other states to obtain it. Major corporations like Netflix, Yelp, Amazon and Google said they would cover the cost of abortion-related travel for employees in abortion-restrictive states.
Since this is included in company health insurance, independent contractors (which do not typically receive any company benefits) would also not be included in an option to be reimbursed for abortion-related travel. In other words, companies are also not providing independent contractors with benefits for health needs like cancer treatments, emergency medical procedures, or preventative care like mammograms and Pap smears. And yet, the only benefits Warren and Bush are pursuing for independent contractors appears to be related to abortion.
In an effort to provide evidence for their concern over this issue, Warren and Bush wrote to five companies who mainly employ independent contractors: Amazon, Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, and DoorDash. Their letter to the DOL reports that “all five confirmed, explicitly or implicitly, that independent contractors would be left out of the travel reimbursement for abortion care benefit.”
Both Warren and Bush are strident supporters of abortion. During a past presidential campaign, Warren stated, “I believe that abortion rights are human rights.” Bush, despite her own traumatic abortion experiences, insists that “Abortion care is health care.”
