Texas — Texas Republican Briscoe Cain, R-Dear Park, announced on Friday that he had sent a letter to Citigroup alleging that he was circumventing the state’s strict abortion legislation.
According to Cain, the company recently enacted a policy of paying travel and expenses to employees traveling from Texas to have an abortion.
In a letter to Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Cain will cover the cost of an employee’s abortion or provide abortion compensation in the interests of the employee in the next session. It states that it will introduce a law prohibiting transactions with companies that do.
Cain called Citigroup’s policy “a grotesque abuse of fiduciary duty on many shareholders of your company against abortion.”
Mr Cain said that if the bill were enacted, it would prevent Citigroup from underwriting Texas municipal bonds.
In a filing last week, Citigroup announced an abortion cost policy in response to “changes in reproductive medicine laws in certain states.”
Texas law, which came into force in September 2021, prohibits abortion as soon as fetal heart activity is detected. This is often 6 weeks after pregnancy and before knowing that many women are pregnant.
The law also allows citizens to sue doctors and others who assist women in obtaining an abortion after a specified period of time.
A recent study by the University of Texas at Austin found that about 1,400 women a month sought out-of-state abortion after the enforcement of Texas law.
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