Google Employees Petition Bosses For Abortion Policy Changes. Alphabet Inc., which owns Google, is under pressure from more than 650 employees to provide abortion benefits to contractors, stop supporting anti-abortion candidates with donations, and do more to safeguard users from false information about abortion and requests from law enforcement.
This week, executives were emailed a petition with the demands, which Reuters was able to see. Since a Supreme Court decision in June spurred or raised the potential of new limits on abortion and reproductive care in more than half of the 50 states, they reflect worries across the country.
Google Employees Petition Bosses For Abortion Policy Changes. The petition was launched by the Alphabet Workers Union group, but Google declined to comment on it.
Many businesses, including Google, have put policies in place to support employees who want to get an abortion. These perks, such as travel reimbursement to areas where the operation is still allowed, according to the Alphabet employees, should also be provided to contract workers and temporary employees.
According to Alejandra Beatty, technical program manager at Alphabet healthcare company Verily and co-lead of the petition, thousands of employees reside in states that prohibit abortions.
Over 174,000 individuals are employed by Alphabet globally, and while it does set some rules, it does not have complete control over the practices of outside vendors.
The petition also demands that Alphabet refrain from supporting political causes and candidates who advocate for limiting access to abortion through political donations. At least once before, it stopped giving. Google announced that it would halt payments to Republicans who voted against recognizing that Joe Biden won the election in 2021, following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6.
Users’ Google searches relating to abortion “must never be saved, handed up to law authorities, or classified as a criminal,” according to petitioners.
Google has stated that it will keep fighting excessive police requests for user information.
The workers also repeated the requests of pro-abortion activists who have been calling on Google for years to eliminate search results for crisis pregnancy centers that aim to discourage individuals from having abortions. According to Google, reported false results are removed.
Beatty suggested that Alphabet create a task group to oversee product modifications and view the defense of reproductive rights as an existential conflict, similar to how it approached COVID-19.
She said, “We’re asking for a thorough response.
