Abortion battle moves to corporate boardrooms

With the continuing political and legal debates over the future of abortion in America, the pro-abortion lobby is now taking the battle to corporate boardrooms. Large companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Disney, Amazon, and Dick’s Sporting Goods have promised some form of reimbursement for employee travel to have an abortion. Netflix is offering a stipend large enough to cover both travel and the procedure. Some such as Duolingo are threatening to move their corporate headquarters if abortions are restricted in their states.

This is all as expected since the sexual revolution has marched through the institutions of capitalism largely uncontested and is accustomed to victory. But Christians should avoid the counsel of despair and join the contest because things are beginning to change. Abortion allies are overconfident, and Americans have grown tired of businesses swerving out of their lane to pick up ideological passengers from the cause of the month club. Furthermore, it is an uphill climb to make the case that overturning Roe v. Wade and subsequent state pro-life legislation is directly adverse to business interests.

What are these alleged business interests? First is the cost of maternity and sick leave. Yes, that’s right. When states protect the unborn, according to resolutions proposed by pro-abortion interests, it’s bad for business because women take maternity leave. Or maybe women go back to work, but their babies get sick and moms want to take a few days off to care for their children. We can’t have that, can we? Yes, the same leftist coalition that wants paid maternity and paternity leave is worried about the business cost of women taking (typically unpaid) time off to care for a sick child.

Second, companies are led to believe their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies require their acceptance of pro-abortion proposals. Outside leftist agencies argue in their resolutions that companies should defund politicians who oppose abortion, and this argument has already been made to the insurance company Progressive, Coca-Cola, AT&T, and Macy’s. It’s not enough for companies to oppose the overturning of Roe, they must run all political contribution decisions through the abortion ringer. A company might want to support or lobby a state legislator who would keep its taxes low, which seems like a pretty direct business interest, but instead, it should now override that because that same politician also wants to protect the unborn. This is business risk management?

The bad news is that such resolutions in prior years were withdrawn. That’s bad because, typically, resolutions are negotiating tactics. The activists put something on the ballot, but companies don’t like shareholder resolutions on the ballot, so the company deals with the activists privately. I’ve personally engaged in some of these negotiations. When you see “Status: Agreement reached, resolution withdrawn,” the activists probably got most of what they wanted. This means that the spate of pro-abortion resolutions on this year’s ballots is perhaps good news, as it suggests the companies likely did not sufficiently cave in to demands for the activists to pull their questions from the ballot and walk away with a victory.

The fact that Lowe’s, Walmart, and T.J. Maxx had pro-abortion proposals on the ballot means that, at least to some degree, they didn’t (pun intended) give the store away. They were wise not to. The proposals contained a provision that invites boards to “include any effects on employee hiring, retention, and productivity, and decisions regarding closure or expansion of operations in states proposing or enacting restrictive laws” in their analysis. This is a thinly veiled attempt to get companies to economically threaten states whose democratic processes came to, in their mind, the wrong conclusion about abortion. It’s akin to saying, “That’s a nice state you have there; it would be a shame if we had to fire some of your people.”

This battle is far from over. Institutional Shareholder Services, the gigantic proxy service company (to which many money managers delegate their votes), supported these resolutions. Whether the big three money managers—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—voted for or against them is not yet known. Although these proposals are losing, they are getting higher vote counts than expected if none of the big institutions were on board. As of now, the big three are mum, which shows us that the companies and the asset managers now realize that these proposals are dangerous for them. Gone are the days when a CEO genuflects to the left, gets dinner and a plaque, and hears no word of opposition. People are fed up. Now the question is whether fed-up people will also show up and voice their opposition where it counts, not on message boards but at annual shareholder meetings. If they do, lives could be saved.