Employers could find themselves in the crosshairs of state efforts to crack down on abortion in the wake of the landmark US Supreme Court ruling eliminating federal guarantees for abortion rights.

Many large companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Uber Technologies Inc., have pledged to pay travel costs for workers seeking abortions in states where they remain legal.

But state laws in Oklahoma and Texas that prohibit assisting somebody to get an abortion, as well as the potential for copycat or other versions of anti-abortion legislation in red states, threaten legal risks for employers and their executives who actively support abortion access for their employees.

1. Can states ban companies from paying for travel?

States could face legal limits to their authority in this area, particularly federal preemption under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

ERISA prevents states from regulating employers’ group health plans—where medical-related travel assistance often resides—but that preemption applies only to self-funded plans, which are mostly used by large employers. The fully insured plans that smaller employers often use are generally subject to state regulation.

But as for employers’ abortion assistance benefits, “this is all very new. Nothing like this has been tested yet in the context of ERISA preemption,” said Jennifer B. Rubin, an employment lawyer with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

The travel assistance benefits...

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