The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion in 2022 shook up the business world, as shareholders called on the corporate sector to detail how the move would impact their workforces, and employees asked their employers to be more transparent about their reproductive healthcare benefits. Two years on, abortion access is still an animating issue for the US electorate.
While a Harris-Walz administration could signal to HR professionals fewer restrictions to navigate when it comes to reproductive healthcare benefits, a Trump-Vance administration could tighten access while focusing on broadening access to other aspects of family planning. Who moves to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., in January, however, is only a piece of the regulatory puzzle, albeit an important one.
Harris’s plans include codifying Roe. After the high court overturned Roe v. Wade, Vice President Harris took up the mantle of abortion rights for the Biden administration. In the wake of the decision she held more than 20 events focused on reproductive rights, meeting with stakeholders to discuss challenges with restricted abortion access post-Roe. This March, Harris became the first vice president to visit an abortion provider when she stopped at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Harris has championed Biden administration policies that seek to protect access to abortion, and intersect with some HR professionals’ efforts to do the same for their workforces. Among the actions she’s helped promote are an Aug. 2022 executive order seeking to protect patients who travel out of state to seek reproductive care, as well as efforts to preserve access to mifepristone, a medication used for abortions, among other treatments. Since the federal right to an abortion was overturned two years ago, some HR teams have expanded their employers’ benefits to cover funds for employees who need to travel to seek abortion care, while others have had to navigate state laws limiting access to mifepristone.
If elected president, Harris has said she would sign Congressional legislation to codify a federal right to an abortion—something her running mate, Tim Walz, did at the state level as governor of Minnesota. The Harris-Walz campaign has also said they want to preserve access to contraception and fertility treatments like in-vitro fertilization. IVF, which is increasingly offered as an employee benefit, has come under legal scrutiny since Roe was overturned. If a Harris administration was ultimately successful at codifying federal abortion protections through legislation, HR leaders would be navigating a landscape similar to what was in place before Roe was overturned, with employees facing fewer state-level restrictions on the procedure. Workers would likely continue to have access to IVF through their insurance, though such treatments could still face challenges similar to the one that temporarily compromised access in Alabama.
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Trump emphasizes state actions on abortion. The former president’s future plans on addressing abortion access in a second presidential term are a little more muddy. During his first term in office, Trump, of course, nominated three of the five Supreme Court Justices who decided to scrap the federal right to abortions.
Since then, Trump has delivered an unclear message about his stance on abortion. He now says he supports exceptions to abortion restrictions and that Florida’s six-week abortion ban is “too short.” He also suggested his primary priority was to throw the issue back to state legislatures to decide.
Trump earlier in August posted on the Truth Social platform, “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” The move followed a Fox News interview wherein he had suggested, “Every Democrat, every Republican, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade terminated and brought back to the states.”
Which federal moves HR professionals should be eyeing should the Republican nominee assume the White House in January is unclear. Anti-abortion activists have suggested enforcing the Comstock Act to prohibit the mailing of mifepristone and other “abortion related materials.” Before he was tapped to join the Trump ticket, Sen. JD Vance joined lawmakers in a letter asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to enforce it. Should a Trump-run Justice Department pursue the prohibition of mailing mifepristone, HR teams might need to assess how it might affect benefits if abortion coverage is offered.
The former president, however, told CBS he would “generally speaking” not pursue that strategy if elected.
His campaign is now promising to expand IVF access, vowing to make the services free as a government service or mandating that insurance companies pay for it. This sort of insurance mandate could impact coverage or costs for employer-sponsored healthcare plans if the federal government changes how it approaches IVF treatment for private individuals; HR teams may have to communicate new benefits or changes to premiums or care costs.
“We need great children, beautiful children in our country,” Trump said in an NBC interview following the announcement.