Over 50 Companies Sign Letter Claiming Texas Abortion Ban Threatens Health of Workers

Over 50 companies signed a letter recently claiming the Texas’ abortion ban threatened the health and economic stability of their employees and customers.

Entities including Yelp, Lyft, Stitch Fix, Patagonia, and Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. said Texas’ recently-enacted abortion law, banning abortions once fetal heart activity is detected, went against their values, the Hill reported Tuesday.

“Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence and economic stability of our workers and customers,” the letter, on the Don’t Ban Equality website, read.

“Simply put, policies that restrict reproductive health care go against our values and are bad for business. It impairs our ability to build diverse and inclusive workforce pipelines, recruit top talent across states, and protect the well-being of all the people who keep our businesses thriving day in and out,” the document continued.

Breitbart News reported September 1 Texas became the first state in the nation to enact a “Heartbeat” abortion law, banning the procedure once a fetal heartbeat was detected.

The article read:

Other states have passed “heartbeat” bills, but, once signed into law, abortion rights activists filed lawsuits challenging them. Subsequently, courts have blocked these laws, ruling they are unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions. The Texas measure, however, contains a unique enforcement mechanism whereby any private citizen may file a civil lawsuit against an abortion provider or any other individual who “aids or abets” a “criminal abortion.”

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 on September 1 to not block the Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy while legal challenges proceeded in lower courts.

“A narrow majority of justices held that the abortion-provider plaintiffs had failed to meet the high standard required for the Supreme Court to issue an injunction blocking a law before it goes into effect,” Breitbart News reported.

Meanwhile, dating app OkCupid pledged to donate one dollar to Planned Parenthood for every user who promoted abortion on their profile with a “pro-choice” badge.

Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Hobley explained the creation of the badge was in response to the recently enacted pro-life law in Texas.