Nearly 200 Businesses Sign on to Publicly Support Reproductive Rights
“Don’t Ban Equality” initiative is launched with full-page ad in the New York Times, backed by reproductive rights organizations, including the Center
More than 180 CEOs, from a broad array of business sectors, declared their opposition to recent attacks on reproductive health care in a full-page letter published in the New York Times today, calling the recent rash of abortion bans “bad for business” and using the hashtag #DontBanEquality. By the end of the day on Monday, 211 companies had joined the campaign.
The letter, signed by CEOs from Bloomberg LP, H&M U.S., Slack, Eileen Fisher, Twitter, Atlantic Records, Warby Parker, Glossier, among many others, states “restricting access to reproductive health care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence and customers stability of our employees and customers.”
Click to view the full ad.The ad is the launching point for a sustained campaign to mobilize businesses nationwide, and was coordinated by a coalition of reproductive rights organizations, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The four groups are also behind the related Don’t Ban Equality website, where company leaders can formally add their names to the letter and join the Don’t Ban Equality Coalition, as well as get more information about how to support and protect reproductive rights in the U.S.
Said Nancy Northup, President and CEO for the Center, “A woman’s ability to access reproductive health care is critical to her autonomy, economic success, health, human rights, and empowerment in the workplace. Reproductive health care is a human right for all, no matter who you are, where you live, or your profession.
“When a woman’s reproductive rights and freedoms are under attack, the health and wellbeing of our society is jeopardy. It is critical we join together as advocates, business leaders, and consumers to make clear how important access to reproductive health care is to our society as a whole.”
The ad comes on the heels of increasingly extreme abortion bans and restrictions passed by state legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio and states that these kinds of strict abortion laws make it difficult for companies to “build diverse and inclusive workforce pipelines,” and, “simply put, it goes against our values.”
Interested companies and CEOs can go to DontBanEquality.com to sign on.
