How Businesses Can Support Reproductive Rights

This story about how business leaders can support reproductive rights is part of The Solutions Effect, a monthly newsletter covering the best of solutions journalism in the sustainability and social impact space. If you aren't already getting this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Reproductive rights are a focal point of the upcoming United States elections. They’ll be on the ballot in 10 states, are a key topic of discussion on the campaign trail, and impact women and everyone else — yes, everyone else — across the nation. 

In a country where childcare responsibilities largely fall on women and parental leave policies lag behind the rest of the world, taking away a woman’s ability to make their own reproductive decisions radically impacts their ability to live the life of their choosing, said Michelle Greene, senior advisor for the Women and Democracy Initiative at the bipartisan, pro-democracy Leadership Now Project. 

“This is really fundamental to women's ability to make their own choices about how their lives and their careers will unfold,” Greene said. “For this fundamental right to be impaired by misinformation and an undemocratic process is highly problematic.”

The ripple effect extends to women’s annual income, participation in the labor force, workplace productivity and the entire national economy. 

The 16 states that instituted abortion bans or extreme restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade cost the U.S. economy an estimated $68 billion, according to an analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. If reproductive health restrictions were eliminated, employed women would have earned over $8 billion more in 2023 and over 360,500 more women would participate in the workforce each year. 

“So there's a whole economic case for why this is important,” Greene said. “The even more important point is literally women are dying, and that just should not be happening. And it certainly should not be happening because of decisions made by a not-fully-representative body that is not reflecting the will of the vast majority of Americans.”

That’s not hyperbole. A Gender Equity Policy Institute report found that mothers in states with abortion bans are up to three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth. Earlier this month, the organization found that Texas’s maternal mortality rate rose 56 percent from 2019 to 2022, far outpacing the national average of 11 percent. The state’s ban on abortion care began in 2021. 

Despite the seeming polarization of the issue, 63 percent of Americans — four percentage points more than in 2021 — say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. That trend has remained stable for several years. 

Seven in 10 Americans also support access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), with just 8 percent saying it’s a bad thing, according to another Pew poll. The fertility treatment is under the reproductive rights spotlight in U.S. politics, too. 

“This is an issue where there is actually pretty widespread agreement across Republicans and Democrats, across men and women, about the fundamental right to have reproductive choice,” Greene said. “One of the disturbing realities of our democracy is that women are underrepresented. They're underrepresented, certainly, in our federal government. They're underrepresented in almost every one of our state houses. So you see decisions being made that are at odds with what the democratic majority actually thinks on this issue. And those are often being made by legislative bodies that are really not representative of the broader population.”

Considering all of this, I asked Greene if business leaders have a role to play. 

“I think the answer to that happens at a few different levels,” Greene said. “There's the level of the individual business, and we've seen businesses taking many different stances to how they can address that at an individual level.”

Businesses in restrictive states might support employees who need to travel for reproductive health services, offer benefits and healthcare coverage related to reproductive rights, or give employees paid time off to vote, she said. 

“Then when we look more broadly, there's also: What is business as a whole doing to speak up on issues?” Greene said. “There's a lot of controversy around should business as a whole be speaking up on individual issues … But I think there really is a strong case to be made that business needs to protect democracy, and business needs to play a role in protecting democracy. And that can happen in lots of different ways.”

Though it’s not a business leader’s job to fix democracy, they have the trust to help do it, she said. Business is still seen as the only institution truly trusted by the public in the annual Trust Barometer Global Report from the Edelman Trust Institute. So making public statements, signing on to statements, and using their voices can have a big impact. 

Last year, the Leadership Now Project worked with Ohio business leaders to express opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment that would have required a 60 percent supermajority to pass constitutional amendments, making it more difficult to protect reproductive rights in an election later that year. 

The campaign consisted of an open letter and advertisements featuring local business leaders, including the founder of Columbus-based Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Jeni Britton. 

“Columbus is a place where everyone’s voice matters,” Britton says in the video. “It is the thing that people see when they first come here, that they matter, their voice matters, and that they can make a difference here. I think Issue 1 puts that in jeopardy in a huge way. Please vote on August 8, and vote no on Issue 1. It’s the only thing on the ballot.”

Local voices have a lot of influence, Greene said. In this case, hearing from a local leader might have encouraged some of the voters who resoundingly rejected the proposal at the polls and, later that year, passed a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive health care. 

“Certainly folks in Ohio felt like that was an important voice,” Greene said. “That was one of their own, right? It was a business leader from Ohio. It wasn't someone from outside coming and telling them what to do.”

Of course, businesses should not run the country and dictate policy decisions in lieu of voters, but there are appropriate times for them to step up to ensure democracy is protected, Greene said. 

“I don't think any of us want to live in a country where businesses dictate what our policies should be or where campaign donations dictate what our policies should be,” she said. “It’s not the role of business to dictate policy at all, but I think we are living in an extreme time where democracy is at peril. And for businesses, I think there are some realities around if you want to be part of a thriving economy, if you want to have the conditions in place for business to thrive, our democracy is fundamental to that, and that is at risk.”