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Kavanaugh & the New Fortune 500 Civil War

Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS judge. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Eriq Gardner
June 27, 2022

On Friday, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade by concluding there was no constitutional right to an abortion. As a result, states are now free to impose absolute restrictions on a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy. Thanks to so-called “trigger laws” in 13 states, abortion is now illegal in a good portion of this nation. Recognizing this, many corporations including Disney, Amazon, and Starbucks have been expressing their intentions to support employees who wish to travel to states where abortions will still be available, assuming, that is, the Constitution really is “neither pro-life nor pro-choice” but “neutral” as Justice Brett Kavanaugh writes, and states are free to permit “abortion on demand.”

Is offering reimbursement for abortion travel more than a gesture? Will it amount to a brave act? Do these announcements foreshadow some willingness to fight for abortion rights? And if not, can Corporate America even avoid the turmoil to come? These are hard questions to answer because I’m not convinced that executives have really grappled with the post-Dobbs mayhem ahead. After all, until now, most companies have remained on the sidelines of the abortion debate.