While Amazon, Starbucks, Mastercard Yelp, Tesla, Citigroup, Apple and Salesforce have receiving kudos from the Abortion Industry, the decision by some large corporations to “expand employees’ access to abortions”—i.e., cover the travel costs of employees leaving their home state to seek an abortion—remains a minority position among corporate America on what is the ultimate polarizing issue.
Of course, Planned Parenthood is all in favor. “Nadia Khamis, director of corporate engagement at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told ABC News that the organization is ‘really encouraged to see a large influx of companies publicizing how they’re responding to the potential threat to Roe.’”
Pro-life organizations disagree for many reasons. For one, “These companies are formed to produce a product and make a profit for investors,” David N. O’Steen told ABC News. “Not to fly people across the country to have abortions. It’s a terrible business decision.”
For another, Derrick Jones, NRLC’s Chief Marketing Officer, raises some very pertinent issues.
Are these corporations also enhancing family leave benefits and travel benefits for employees that might have to travel for pre/post-natal care for their children? If not, it would seem to me that they’re incentivizing abortion and perpetuating the continued false narrative that abortion is the best way to help your career within their corporation. And by incentivizing abortion, they’re discriminating against those who keep their children.
Joe Nocera, writing in the New York Times, observes that
“In this case, however, there is likely to be a countervailing pressure that will be hard to ignore. Thirteen states have passed so-called trigger laws that will effectively ban or curtail abortion access almost immediately if Roe is overturned. Another dozen or so are poised to follow the same path. Virtually all of these are red states, led by governors who no doubt saw what Mr. DeSantis did to Disney. In retrospect, following the lead of employees in standing up for climate action, racial justice and the #MeToo movement was a no-brainer for corporations compared with taking a public position on abortion.”
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management at Yale University who convenes meetings with top CEOs on social issues, “told ABC News that a comparatively small number of companies have spoken out in response to the draft Supreme Court opinion on Roe because they’re assessing whether employees, investors and other stakeholders want such a move.”
“There has been a bigger stampede on other issues,” Sonnenfeld told Max Zahn of ABC News. “Quite a number of CEOs are waiting to make sure they’re not getting out in front of their constituencies.”
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
