Several days after Texas’s alarming new abortion law went into effect, Lyft and Uber announced plans to help their drivers who are financially impacted by it. The restrictive law not only bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — a time at which most people are not even aware they’re pregnant — but it also allows everyday citizens to sue anyone who helps an individual obtain an abortion, whether it be their friend, doctor, family member, or even the person who drove them to the clinic. Anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion after six weeks can be fined up to $10,000.
On Friday, Lyft stated that it created a Driver Defense Fund to cover 100 percent of the legal frees for all drivers who have lawsuits brought against them under SB 8. “We want to be clear: Drivers are never responsible for monitoring where their riders go or why,” the blog post reads. “Imagine being a driver and not knowing if you are breaking the law by giving someone a ride. Similarly, riders never have to justify, or even share, where they are going and why. Imagine being a pregnant woman trying to get to a healthcare appointment and not knowing if your driver will cancel on you for fear of breaking a law. Both are completely unacceptable.” The statement also declared that Lyft is donating $1 million to Planned Parenthood “to help ensure that transportation is never a barrier to healthcare access.”
Source: Read Full Article
