Facebook’s parent company orders its employees to stop talking about abortion.
An executive at Meta Platforms told employees on Thursday they should not discuss the controversial issue during business hours due to “an increased risk” that the company would be perceived as a “hostile work environment,” The Verge reported.
The policy, initially introduced three years ago but only recently reported, prohibits employees from expressing “opinions or debates about whether abortion is right or wrong, the availability or right of abortion, and political, religious and humanitarian views on the subject”. ,” said The Verge.
The tech news site quoted language from an internal note titled “Respectful Communications Policy,” which was first rolled out by the company in 2019.
But Meta employees reportedly want their bosses to abolish the policy in light of a recent draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources at Meta, told employees on Thursday that abortion was “the most divisive and reported topic” on Workplace, Facebook’s internal communications and messaging platform, according to The Verge.
Gale reportedly said that “even if people are respectful, and they try to be respectful about their views on abortion, it can still make people feel like they’re being targeted based on their gender or religion.”
“It’s the only unique subject that moves that line on a protected class in almost all cases.”
The Verge reported that it had received recordings of Gale’s comments to employees.
Another Meta executive, Naomi Gleit, wrote on Workplace, “At work there are a lot of sensitivities around this topic, which makes it difficult to discuss on Workplace.”
Gleit wrote that employees were allowed to discuss abortion at work “with a trusted colleague in a private setting (e.g., live, chat, etc.)” and in a “listening session with a small group of up to 5 like-minded people to show solidarity.”
Meta has not officially taken a position on the Supreme Court’s draft opinion, although Mark Zuckerberg’s No. 2, Sheryl Sandberg, wrote on her Facebook page that abortion was “one of our most fundamental rights.”
“Every woman, wherever she lives, should be free to choose whether and when she becomes a mother,” she wrote.
“Few things are more important to women’s health and equality.”
Gleit told employees the company will “continue to provide our employees with access to reproductive health care in the US, regardless of where they live.”
A growing list of Fortune 500 companies, including Starbucks, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Salesforce, have said they will reimburse employees for travel expenses incurred when seeking abortions or gender-confirming surgeries out of state.
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