Shortly after the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade was overturned by the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health decision on June 24th, 2022, eliminating abortion as a protected right under the constitution, businesses sprung into action.
Pro-choice activists supporting legal access to abortion, March 4, 2020
AFP via Getty Images
But over the past year, significant progress has been made in the field of reproductive care, despite the decision and its far-reaching impact. The majority of Americans overwhelmingly support access to abortion. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, nearly three quarters of adults (74%) and 79% of reproductive age women say that obtaining an abortion should be a personal choice rather than regulated by law. That’s why when the Dobbs decision happened, it fueled a surge of passion, energy and innovation around the movement.
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With two entire generations having grown up under the protections of Roe, coalitions, startups and large corporations vowed to address new restrictions impacting their employees. Fortune 500 companies , including Apple AAPL , Starbucks SBUX , Microsoft MSFT and more, spoke out against the decision, promising protections for their workers including travel reimbursement for employees seeking reproductive care no longer accessible in the state where they reside.
Today, abortions are banned with very limited exceptions in 14 states and very heavily restricted in a handful of others . But activists and business leaders rallied in these states, blocking total bans (without exceptions) and sparking surprising political wins in places like Kansas and Kentucky .
Entrepreneurs around the country drew on their creativity to come up with solutions for helping those living in the most restrictive states access reproductive care. Women’s health startups like Julie and Stix created “ buy one, donate one ” models where people were able to buy emergency contraception while simultaneously donating the pills to people impacted most severely by their state’s trigger laws. Plan C Pills , founded by a group of public health veterans, advertising creatives and digital strategists, was built as a hub for accessing abortion pills by mail in all 50 states. Travel companies like Elevated Access offer private flights for those seeking abortion or gender-affirming care. Their mission is to ease the burden and provide transportation for folks so they can receive life-saving healthcare.
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Yesterday, Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced new legislation intended to protect patients and providers from criminalization by making care more readily accessible. The Abortion Justice Act also calls for federal investments in abortion care.
If passed, the bill would include coverage of travel and lost wages, while boosting federal spending in abortion training, research, outreach and doula care.
In the announcement, Representative Pressley said, “Today, Black women, regardless of socioeconomic status, are still three times more likely to die in childbirth or post birthing complications. And then you’re faced with the prospect of – I don’t even call it anti abortion activists or policies – it’s forced birth. [With] the prospect of forced birth, this is a matter quite literally of life and death.”
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Even those with strong religious beliefs are speaking out about their support of reproductive health decisions being offered as a choice, not a mandate. There’s a growing group of activists across various faiths who are frustrated to see their religions weaponized in the fight against reproductive care access.
“The majority of people of faith actually support reproductive choice. They support abortion rights because of their faith, not in spite of it,” says Jamie Manson , president of Catholics For Choice . “There’s this narrative that you can’t support abortion if you’re Catholic. But the truth is, these beliefs are not as in conflict as extremists want everyone to believe.”
Manson was one of the speakers at a briefing that took place yesterday, titled, ‘Abortion Is Your Business: A Private Virtual Briefing.’ Produced by Janna Meyrowitz Turner , president of Synastry Capital and co-founder of VCs For Repro , the event brought together professionals and activists across private investing, venture, media and business to discuss the technical and systemic impacts of abortion bans on innovation, wellbeing and the economy.
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The discussion was centered around the business impact that the proliferation of abortion bans and threats to bodily autonomy have on the economy. The firms who signed on to be part of VCs For Repro manage a total of $112 Billion in assets across their funds. A hot topic of the briefing was the “trillion dollar femtech opportunity” that some in the room thought was a conservative estimate.
“Talking about abortion has been de-risked,” Meyrowitz Turner says. “Businesses are always assessing risk. Now it’s actually more risky for businesses to avoid the topic of abortion than to address it head on. Companies historically didn’t want to go near this issue. Now they have to.”
“Our post-Dobbs landscape is not the same as pre-Roe 1970.” she points out. “So much progress has been made and there’s all this innovation around how to make reproductive access easier. Those attacking reproductive freedom to hold desperately onto power are scared. That’s why you’re seeing political leaders go to such extremes to cling to their outdated views. They’re fighting a noisy and winless battle.”
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Last week, the Small Business Majority released a poll of women entrepreneurs, where 92% responded that the freedom to decide if and when to have children is extremely important. Across the political spectrum, 72% of women business owners support a federal law that protects abortion care access. 55% of Republican women support this as well.
Jen Stark is the co-director of BSR’s Center for Business and Social Justice. She is also one of the co-founders of the Don’t Ban Equalit y coalition, a group of Fortune 500 companies and small businesses that acknowledge how restricting reproductive rights is bad for business. 1,000 companies have signed on since the coalition was created in 2019, including Patagonia, Dove, Etsy and more.
“In the wake of the decision last June, thousands of companies took action to increase or expand their workplace benefits, demonstrating that abortion access is about the health, safety, and well-being of workers as well as part of gender equity in the workplace,” Stark says. “We have been preparing businesses to respond to the fall of Roe, seeing this as just the end of the beginning. There is still more that businesses need to do to ensure benefits are accessible and inclusive but this was an important start.”
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Stark is working with businesses to help them understand how to make an impact on this ongoing public health crisis. She points out that one in four women may need reproductive care over the course of their careers.
“The sidelines are not the middle ground anymore,” she says. “This issue has literally shown up on the doorsteps of companies. 58% of women of reproductive health age live in a state hostile to abortion access.”
Many startups are coming up with creative solutions to expand access to reproductive care. Stix , a VC-backed reproductive health company, is educating young people on the various ways they can get emergency contraception for free. Stix has distributed nearly 20,000 free doses to date through their Restart Donation Bank program, focusing on red states and healthcare deserts.
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Stix also placed billboards in college towns such as Baton Rouge, LA (by Louisiana State University) and Tampa, FL (by The University of South Florida) to spread awareness that the morning-after pill is still legal and directing people on how & where to get it quickly, safely, and discreetly — and, for those who need it, for free.
“We’re seeing this play out in classrooms across America as school boards in conservative districts increasingly look to ban inclusive, comprehensive sexual health education in schools” says Stix co-founder, Cynthia Plotch. “Earlier this year, we were privileged to work with actor and activist Kerry Washington to spread the word that emergency contraception is legal in all 50 states after a recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 50% of women in the U.S believe that emergency contraception was illegal or are unsure about the legal status.”
Her co-founder, Jamie Norwood, agrees that it’s up to the private sector to do what they can to impact healthcare in the absence of federal protections. “After seeing the inaction and lack of traction coming from Washington, we mobilized our efforts around providing free emergency contraception and sexual health education to women,” she says.
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Across the private sector, it’s now more risky to avoid the topic of abortion than to approach it. Class of 2023 graduates are evaluating employment options based on company values above all else. They’re also seeking jobs in the field of reproductive justice. An Indeed report found that, “the share of job searches on Indeed for phrases like ‘abortion’ and ‘reproductive rights’ soared” when the Dobbs decision was announced. Only a few days later, the share of searches containing abortion-related terms jumped 1,461% as compared to the year prior.
The experts agree. Supporting reproductive care access is good for business.