Photo: Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Knoxville, listens to debate after introducing HB1006, a bill that would require certain employers to provide paid maternity leave, during the House session on Monday, Feb. 13, 2023, at the state Capitol in Little Rock..(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
A bill that would require companies that pay employees’ expenses for out-of-state abortions to also provide 12 weeks of paid maternity leave fell short of clearing the Arkansas Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on Wednesday in a divided voice vote.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, afterward, state Rep. Aaron Pilkington, the sponsor of House Bill 1006, said he plans to ask the committee again to send the bill to the full Senate.
Pilkington told the Senate committee that with the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in June and he saw many companies across the United States issue statements that they support women and would pay for them to get abortion services in other states if the states in which they resided had abortion bans like Arkansas’.
Arkansas state law bans abortions except to save the life of the mother.
“By circumventing the Arkansas ban and the loophole to send these women to other states, a lot of women who I know found this extremely hypocritical of these companies to say they support women,” said Pilkington, a Republican from Knoxville.
“They say they support choice, yet they only incentivize one choice. They only incentivize one option for their female employees.
“So I thought if they want to do this and they want to take on this extra expense for their benefits, why not also offer maternity leave?”
Eleven other states already require paid maternity leave, he said.
Pilkington said the bill was approved with widespread support in the House of Representatives and there is no known opposition to the bill that he is aware of.
abortions or travel expenses related to abortions for employees” to also pay for 12 weeks of paid maternity leave.
To count as full-time, an employee must work at the company for each working day during 20 or more “calendar work weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.” The bill would apply only to employees who are enrolled in the company’s health care plan and are birth mothers.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, asked how many states have enacted legislation similar to Pilkington’s bill.
Pilkington said Arkansas would be the first state to enact this type of legislation. He said the 11 other states either have paid family leave or paid paternity leave required of all companies.
because a lot of companies … are literally trying to get by day by day,” Pilkington said. “They are not trying to play politics. They are not trying to be woke virtue signalers, and so I didn’t think it was right to include them if they were not paying for those services.”
Sullivan asked whether Pilkington has a fiscal impact report in place on the businesses he said the bill would potentially put a strain on.
Pilkington said he doesn’t have a fiscal impact report on the companies with at least 50 employees that are offering to pay for abortion-related services and “circumvent the law by trafficking their employees into other states.”
Sullivan said he appreciates the effort with the bill, and he empathizes with that.
“I just have a hard time when state government is going to start targeting businesses because we disagree with how they are going to spend their money,” he said.
Pilkington said he isn’t targeting or attacking certain companies.
“If you have a female employee who becomes pregnant but you only incentivize one choice, which is to get an abortion, but don’t incentivize the other choice, which is to keep a baby, that’s not a real choice for them,” he said. “I am saying if you are going to offer one, you just need to offer the other as well.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision clearing the way for states to ban abortions, several large companies said they would reimburse employees if they traveled out of state to get an abortion.
In August, Walmart said its health insurance plan covers some abortions for employees, including in cases where a pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage or “lack of fetal viability.” The company will pay travel expenses for employees, or dependents covered under their policies, who do not have access to abortion services within 100 miles of their location, according to a memo from a Walmart executive.
Walmart’s benefits package includes “enhanced maternity and parental leave for qualified full-time hourly and salaried associates,” which includes up to 16 paid weeks off for birth mothers, according to a news release from the company.
During the bill’s hearing in a House committee, Pilkington said he knew of at least three large companies in Arkansas that offered coverage for out-of-state abortions for their employees, but Pilkington declined to name them.
Information for this article was contributed by Will Langhorne of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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