Chris Tomlinson gets at the issue but doesn’t take it all the way.
The Supreme Court’s apparent decision to allow state lawmakers to make women’s health care choices puts chief executives in a tough spot, forcing them to choose between their employees’ rights and right-wing backlash.
Disney’s recent experience defending LGBT rights against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s demagoguery will sadly encourage cowardice.
Millions of Texans are waiting to hear how their employee health insurance will handle abortion coverage when the procedure becomes a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison.
Texas Republicans have made banning abortion their marquee issue for decades. In addition to prohibiting government health insurance from paying for abortions, the Legislature also banned state-regulated plans from covering them.
Employers of 60 percent of Americans with company-sponsored health insurance, though, use self-funded plans. These are exempt from state regulations, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research organization. Only 14 percent of self-funded plans exclude some or all abortions.
Polling shows 59 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal under all or most circumstances, according to Pew Research.
After Gov. Greg Abbott allowed Texans to privately prosecute other Texans who seek an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, many companies stepped up. Amazon, Citigroup, Salesforce, Apple, Bumble, Levi’s, GoDaddy, Match, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, have all promised to help employees get abortions outside Texas.
“We are pro-woman. We will support a woman’s right to make health care decisions for herself, even if that means traveling out of state. It’s an investment that’s not just right, but good business too,” Curtis Sparrer, a principal at Houston-based PR firm Bospar told me in an email.
The company will pay for travel and other expenditures should a Bospar staff member need reproductive health care banned in any state where they live, Sparrer added.
“We want other companies and PR agencies to join the fight, especially since many are composed of women and are led by women. The rights of women are not just on the line,” he added. “As someone who credits his same-sex marriage to the legacy of Roe, I am imploring my colleagues and friends to end their silence and speak truth to power.”
Taking a stand on anything, though, is becoming more perilous for corporations and executives who would rather generate profits than controversy. Employees, especially younger workers, expect their company’s leadership to reflect their values.
“More than half of consumers will buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs, while six in 10 employees will choose employers based on shared beliefs and values,” according to Edelman, a global PR firm. “A stunning 81 percent of respondents want CEOs to be front and center discussing public policy.”
The first thing to realize is that the forthcoming overturn of Roe and Casey is the beginning, not the end. Next up will be a nationwide ban on abortion, for which Senate Republicans are already writing a bill. Now that they will no longer have to pretend that this has anything to do with women’s health, rape and incest exceptions will go away, and it won’t be just doctors who are targeted for arrest and prison. I guarantee you, lowlife creeps like Briscoe Cain cannot wait to throw women in jail for anything that looks like an abortion. Lizelle Herrera was not an aberraion.
If you think I’m being alarmist, go find a copy of that draft opinion and read it for yourself. Note carefully the section in which Sam Alito claims that this opinion is only about abortion and not all of those other things that people like him despise and want to get rid of, like the previous SCOTUS decisions on same-sex marriage and contraception and “sodomy”. I will remind you that most if not all of the justices who have signed onto Alito’s opinion also swore under oath during their Senate confirmation hearings that they considered Roe to be “settled law” and that they respected precedent. There’s no reason at all to believe anything that a known liar says.
So get mad, get organized, and get everyone you know who has the same concerns as you to vote. Businesses are going to have to do more as well, if they actually do care about their employees. But it’s on us, to vote and to put pressure on the people we’ve voted for to act. The clock has struck midnight. What are we going to do about it?
It’s very interesting to note that most of the GOP response is overdramatized indignation over the leaker and how that threatens the integrity of the court. What a bad joke. If McConnnell’s hypocritical games of political Calvinball to stack the court with right wingers didn’t kill the notion of SCOTUS integrity, then Thomas’ refusal to recuse in a case involving his nasty seditious wife did. SCOTUS credibility and impartiality are dead, and the leak is merely stabbing a corpse.
Here’s some bonus stupid for everyone. Newsmax has cracked the case of the leaker- it’s not-yet-sworn-in Justice Jackson:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1521831947546370048
She pulled it off despite not being present for the hearing and the deliberations. She hasn’t even assembled a staff yet! The woman is an outright ninja!