Uber, Lyft offer to cover legal costs for drivers sued under new Texas abortion law

Vehicle service providers Uber and Lyft said Friday that they will pay legal fees for any drivers sued under the new law that bans most abortions in Texas.

Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually about six weeks and often before women know they are pregnant. Rather than being enforced by government agencies, the law gives citizens the right to file civil suits and seek damages against anyone who supports an abortion – including those who take women to clinics.

San Francisco-based Lyft said it created a fund to cover 100% of legal fees for drivers sued under the law while driving on its platform. Lyft described Texas law as an “attack on women’s suffrage” and also said it would donate $ 1 million to Planned Parenthood.

“We want to make it clear: drivers are never responsible for monitoring where their drivers are going or why. Imagine being a driver and you don’t know if you’re breaking the law by picking someone up, ”Lyft said in a statement. “Likewise, drivers never have to justify or even tell where they are going and why. Imagine you are a pregnant woman trying to get to a doctor’s appointment without knowing if your driver will cancel you for fear of breaking the law. “

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi responded in a tweet to Lyft’s testimony, announcing a similar policy for its drivers.

“Drivers shouldn’t be put at risk of getting people where they want to go,” wrote Khosrowshahi. Uber is also headquartered in San Francisco.

Earlier this week, the executive director of Dallas-based Match Group said she was setting up a fund to help employees in Texas seeking an abortion outside of the state. Match Group owns Tinder and a collection of other dating apps.

Rival dating app Bumble from Austin also criticized the law and announced on Instagram that it would donate money to six organizations that support women’s reproductive rights. Both dating agencies are run by women.

According to Match Group, CEO Shar Dubey is creating the fund alone and not through the company. She spoke out against the law in a memo to employees on Thursday.

“I immigrated to America from India over 25 years ago and I must say that as a resident of Texas I am shocked that I now live in a state where reproductive laws for women are more regressive than most other countries in the world. including India, ”Dubey said in the memo.

Texas law, which went into effect Tuesday after the Supreme Court rejected an urgent petition from abortion providers, represents the greatest restriction on the constitutional right to abortion in decades. It makes no exceptions for rape or incest.

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