Meta bans staff from openly discussing Supreme Court abortion ruling

Meta has warned employees not to discuss the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on its internal system and deleting messages that do so, The New York Times reported.

Managers cited a policy that put "strong guardrails around social, political and sensitive conversations" in the workplace, according to company insiders, the newspaper reported. 

Ambroos Vaes, a Meta software engineer, said in a post on LinkedIn he was disappointed that Meta was not allowing the topic to be discussed. "On our internal Workplace platform, moderators swiftly remove posts or comments mentioning abortion."

Vaes added: "The 'respectful' communications policy that was put in place explicitly disallows it. Limited discussion can only happen in groups of up to 20 employees who follow a set playbook, but not out in the open."

A May 12 company memo obtained by The Times mentioned that many internal posts regarding abortion were taken down for violating the company's harassment policy. The policy had led to a high number of complaints to HR.

Meta did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

On Friday the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion nationally almost 50 years ago and returning the matter to the states. 

The memo, seen by The Times, also said Meta had previously allowed open discussion of abortion but later decided it created "significant disruptions in the workplace given unique legal complexities and the number of people affected by the issue." 

However, Meta said it would reimburse travel expenses "to the extent permitted by law" for employees who needed "to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services," The Times reported.

Meanwhile, some Amazon employees have celebrated the ruling on internal Slack channels. The company's HR chief, Beth Galetti, asked workers to "be respectful of everyone's perspectives." Amazon previously said that it would reimburse employees who must travel to seek an abortion.

Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is leaving the company this fall, said in a Facebook post that "the Supreme Court's ruling jeopardizes the health and the lives of millions of girls and women across the country."

"It threatens to undo the progress women have made in the workplace and to strip women of economic power," she wrote. "It will make it harder for women to achieve their dreams."