Corporate America likely to be swept up in coming storm over Roe v. Wade
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In a rare breach of tradition and secrecy, the U.S. Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion leaked to POLITICO. Once a public ruling is released, federal protection of abortion rights would come to an end, allowing each state to decide on the legality of abortion and procedures (at least 22 states already have laws on the books in the event the case is overturned). The high court is expected to announce its final decision within the next two months, though deliberations on controversial cases have been fluid in the past and multiple drafts or vote-trading could occur before then.
Some history: Roe v. Wade effectively legalized abortion across the United States in 1973 by striking down a Texas law that only permitted abortion for the purpose of saving a woman's life. The majority opinion at the time declared that a woman's right to privacy under the 14th Amendment superseded a state's right to ban abortion and the court set different rules for each trimester. In the years since, Roe has been modified but not overturned, like in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In that decision, the court said that restrictions are "unconstitutional" if they place an "undue burden" on a woman, and quickly became the new standard by which new abortion cases were judged.
"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the initial draft majority opinion. "Roe expressed the 'feel[ing]' that the Fourteenth Amendment was the provision that did the work, but its message seemed to be that the abortion right could be found somewhere in the Constitution and that specifying its exact location was not of paramount importance. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision."
Is Corporate America getting involved? You bet, and it has the potential to make bigger waves than the "Don't Say Gay" tussle between Disney (DIS) and Florida's legislature. In 2019, Netflix (NFLX) threatened to pull projects from film and TV hub Georgia over its court-challenged law that would ban abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, while Amazon (AMZN) just promised to reimburse employees with $4,000 if they have to travel for procedures like abortions. Other companies also put up money after Texas's Heartbeat Act went into effect last year, with Match Group (MTCH), Yelp (YELP) and Apple (AAPL) promising to help pay for out-of-state abortions, and Lyft (LYFT) and Uber (UBER) pledging legal defense funds for drivers sued under the new law.
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