Amazon employees in the United States will be reimbursed for a variety of non-life-threatening medical treatments, including elective abortions.
According to an email sent to Amazon employees, the company will pay up to $4,000 (£3,201) in travel expenses each year for therapies that are not available locally.
Several more businesses have indicated plans to provide abortions to their employees. It comes as the technique is becoming increasingly restricted across the country.
The new Amazon perks are retroactively applicable as of January 1st.
The new benefits would apply to treatments that are not offered within a 100-mile (161-kilometre) radius of an employee’s residence and for which virtual choices are not available, according to the announcement, which was originally reported by Reuters.
The benefit expansion was confirmed by an Amazon spokesman, who added that it now includes bariatric care, cancer, congenital malformations diagnosed within 24 months of birth, mental health therapies, and in-patient substance misuse disorder therapy.
With 1.1 million full-time and part-time employees in the United States, Amazon is one of the largest private-sector employers in the country.
The benefits will be available to all employees who are enrolled in one of the company’s two health plans, including those who work in offices or warehouses.
For urgent, life-threatening medical concerns, the corporation will pay up to $10,000 (£8,002).
While Amazon’s benefit extension isn’t expressly intended to facilitate abortion access, it comes at a time when numerous Republican state legislatures have approved laws restricting abortion access in their states.
The conservative-leaning Supreme Court will also make a decision next month on a lawsuit that might overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 court decision that legalised abortion in the United States.
A new survey indicated that 1,400 Texans travel out of state for abortions every month in Texas, which has one of the harshest abortion laws in the country, prohibiting the operation beyond six weeks of pregnancy.
Companies such as Yelp and Citigroup have lately announced that employees who travel to avoid local abortion laws will be reimbursed.
The decision was “in response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in some states,” according to Citigroup.