Lyft, Uber will cover legal fees for drivers sued under Oklahoma abortion law

Lyft and Uber mentioned this week they’ll absolutely cowl authorized charges for his or her respective drivers who’re sued underneath Oklahoma’s anticipated restrictive abortion legislation.

The Oklahoma Home on Thursday handed the Texas-style ban that prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of being pregnant, a time interval earlier than many ladies have even found they’re pregnant. The so-called Oklahoma Heartbeat Act now goes to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is predicted to signal it inside days.

Just like the Texas legislation, folks aiding the process, together with medical doctors, folks paying for the process and clinic staff are in danger. That features rideshare drivers who could be punished for transporting girls to clinics to obtain abortions, the place they could possibly be fined as much as $10,000. Abortion rights activists and suppliers argue these legal guidelines successfully overturn protections set underneath Roe v. Wade in 1973.

“Ladies’s entry to well being care is underneath assault once more, this time in Oklahoma,” Lyft CEO Logan Inexperienced mentioned in a tweeted statement. “Lyft drivers are as soon as once more caught within the center only for getting folks the place they should go. We imagine transportation should not be a barrier to accessing well being care and it is our responsibility to help each our rider and driver communities.”

Lyft and Uber first introduced protections for drivers in Texas after its restrictive abortion legislation took impact in September. Now, the rideshare firms are extending that assist to drivers in Oklahoma.

“Like in TX, we intend to cowl all authorized charges for any driver sued underneath this legislation whereas they’re driving,” an Uber spokesman instructed CNBC in an e mail.

As well as, for girls in Oklahoma and Texas who search out-of-state abortion care, Lyft is working with well being supplier companions to create a “protected state” program that may cowl the prices of transportation to airports and clinics.

Lyft can even cowl journey prices for its workers enrolled in U.S. medical advantages, which embody protection for elective abortion, if the legal guidelines require journey outdoors of Texas or Oklahoma to seek out care.

“This legislation is incompatible with folks’s primary rights to privateness, our neighborhood pointers, the spirit of rideshare, and our values as an organization,” Lyft mentioned in a weblog submit.

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