House Bill 1006 would require companies to offer employees 12 weeks of paid maternity leave if the company pays for employees to get abortions out of state. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Aaron Pilkington, said he was inspired to write it after the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
After the decision was handed down, some companies offered to cover travel expenses for employees to get an abortion out of state. But Pilkington said, to him, this presented a contradiction.
“That blatant hypocrisy is where this bill came out of,” he said. “So these companies that say they believe in choice, say they believe in a woman's right to choose, its not true choice if you incentivize one and not the other.”
The only lawmaker to speak against the bill was Rep. Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock who said he supports maternity leave but felt the bill was an example of government overreach.
“Why do we as a government need to get involved in what a company spends its money on? It's very invasive," he said.
Pilkington responded to Ray's comments in closing for the bill. He seized on his colleague's use of the word "invasive," explaining the bill was inspired by what he saw as hypocrisy.
“You know what's really invasive? When you're an eight-month-old child in the womb and you're in Illinois and you're getting torn from your mother's womb because a company would rather pay for you to go across state lines than offer paid family leave. That's invasive.”
Members of the Arkansas House of Representatives approved the bill on a vote of 80 to 12. It now moves to a committee in the Senate for consideration.
