The fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and 50 years of established precedent is being felt far and wide. It was reasonable to speculate that a new, emboldened conservative majority on the nation's highest court would consider tighter restrictions on abortion. A complete overhaul? That was a stretch, even for the current composition of the court.

As recently as January, this column explored the high court's balance between government control and bodily autonomy in the context of mandatory vaccination regulations. At that time, we wrote: "The current construct of the majority on the high court has demonstrated a commitment to protecting private businesses from overreach by the government. One could even say that striking down the vaccine mandate is a pivotal win for individual rights, personal liberty and body autonomy. It will be very interesting to see how those same principles play out when these same justices are asked to opine in a different context involving overreach by the government. Will fundamental rights carry the day? Or will we see a much different approach to how the government controls the individual choices we make with our bodies?"

So what changed in just six months? What could prompt the SCOTUS majority to reject body autonomy and end the constitutional right to abortion in more than half of the states in the country? Unfortunately, that question is beyond the scope of this column. What is within the scope of this column, though, is how the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision may impact businesses, and in particular, businesses that provide benefits to employees looking to travel to obtain an abortion.

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.