USA – Abortion Bans Are Driving Workers Away — Here’s What Business Leaders Can Do About It

Businesses thrive by attracting top talent, but in states with abortion restrictions, the pool may shrink.

By Nancy Northup
April 7, 2025

When states ban abortion, they aren’t just harming women and families — they’re harming their economy. Recent studies, including one analyzing United States Postal Service change of address data, show that bans are driving thousands of highly skilled workers — especially women and young professionals planning to have children — to relocate. Workers won’t sacrifice their health or their futures for a paycheck, and businesses are feeling the impact. As talent moves to less-restrictive states, companies may struggle to compete, and the ripple effects could hit tax bases, housing markets, and broader economies.

Businesses thrive by attracting top talent, but in states with abortion restrictions, the pool may shrink, innovation may be limited, and recruiting top-tier employees is increasingly difficult. To remain competitive, companies must show employees they have their back. Here’s why:

Continued: https://katiecouric.com/news/opinion/abortion-bans-employment/

07.04.2025

Commentary

Center for Reproductive Rights

Don’t Ban Equality

employers and abortion

Jillaine St. Michel

Kayla Smith

Nancy Northup

Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass

Trump administration drops lawsuit seeking to ensure abortion access in emergency rooms

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Wed March 5, 2025

President Donald Trump’s administration took a major step Wednesday in support of states with sweeping abortion bans, dropping a Biden-era lawsuit against Idaho that sought to protect abortion access in medical emergencies.

The Biden administration had prevailed in early stages of the lawsuit challenging Idaho’s extremely strict abortion restrictions, with the Supreme Court last year leaving in place a temporary court order that allows Idaho hospitals to provide abortion when a pregnancy endangers a woman’s life or health.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/abortion-idaho-emergency-rooms-emtala-supreme-court/index.html

05.03.2025

News

Center for Reproductive Rights

emergency abortion

Emergency Medical And Labor Treatment Act

UN Ruling: Ecuador and Nicaragua Must Legalize Abortion to End Violations of Girls’ Human Rights

The Human Rights Committee recognizes that abortion bans violated the rights of girls who survived sexual violence and were forced into motherhood.

22.01.2025
Center for Reproductive Rights

(PRESS STATEMENT) — In a major victory for girls’ and women’s rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled Monday that Ecuador and Nicaragua violated the human rights of three girls who were forced into motherhood due to abortion bans in those States. In its decision, the Committee recognized that forced pregnancies and forced motherhood disrupts the personal, family, educational, and professional goals of girls, and constitutes a form of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment by severely restricting their right to a dignified life.

The cases of Norma (Ecuador), and Susana and Lucia (Nicaragua), were brought before the Committee in 2019 by the Center for Reproductive Rights and allied organizations. The girls were 12 and 13 years old when they became pregnant after being raped by men in positions of power and authority whom they trusted (the biological father, the grandfather, and a priest, respectively).

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/un-ruling-ecuador-and-nicaragua-must-legalize-abortion-to-end-violations-of-girls-human-rights/

‘They have no options’: Texas court dims hope of timely abortion care for high-risk patients

Kristen Anaya was told she must be on the cusp of death before doctors would give a life-saving abortion

Mary Tuma
Sat 8 Jun 2024

After four rounds of in vitro fertilization, Kristen Anaya and her husband were elated to discover Anaya was finally pregnant - with a baby girl - last April. The 42-year-old Dallas-area woman called IVF a “long and emotional journey”. Despite the cost and struggle, the process was well worth it for Anaya, who wanted to grow her family.

However, the good news would give way to an unexpectedly grueling and traumatic pregnancy that forced her to suffer for days before receiving care, due to Texas’s severe abortion bans.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/08/texas-abortion-high-risk-patients

Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Women Denied Abortion Care Despite Dangerous Pregnancy Complications

Center for Reproductive Rights
May 31, 2024

Today the Texas Supreme Court denied claims brought by 20 women denied abortion care despite facing dangerous pregnancy complications and refused to clarify exceptions to the state’s abortion bans.

The ruling in the high-profile case, Zurawski v. State of Texas, left physicians without clarity about the circumstances under which they can use their own medical judgement to provide abortion care without fear of prosecution.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/zurawski-v-texas-ruling-texas-supreme-court/

USA – The Unlikely Women Fighting for Abortion Rights

The end of Roe has turned women who terminated pregnancies for medical reasons into a political force.

By Kate Zernike
May 27, 2024

For a long time, many women who had abortions because of catastrophic fetal diagnoses told their stories only privately. Grieving pregnancies they dearly wanted and fearing the stigma of abortion, they sought the closely guarded comfort of online communities identified by the way many doctors had described the procedure — TFMR, or “termination for medical reasons.”

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, their pain has been compounded into anger by new abortion bans across the country. While these women account for a fraction of abortions in the United States, they have emerged as the most powerful voices in the nation’s post-Roe debate, speaking out against bans with their stories of being forced across state lines and left to feel like criminals in seeking care.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/us/abortion-women-tfmr.html

Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade

By Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak
Dec. 15, 2023

On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.

At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html

Texas Supreme Court rules against woman who sought abortion hours after she says she’ll travel out of state

A state district judge granted the request last week, but the Texas Supreme Court directed the lower court to vacate its order Monday.

Dec. 11, 2023
By Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix

A Texas woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis and who was awaiting a decision from the Texas Supreme Court about whether she would be allowed to get an abortion said Monday that she has decided to leave Texas to get the procedure.

Kate Cox, a mother of two who is around 20 weeks pregnant, found out just after Thanksgiving that her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a fatal diagnosis. Seeking to terminate the pregnancy to protect her health and future fertility, she and her husband sought a court order to block Texas’ abortion bans from applying in her case.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-woman-sought-abortion-court-order-leave-state-rcna129087

Women, doctors announce legal action against abortion bans in 3 states

The women allege they were denied abortions despite dangerous complications.

By Nadine El-Bawab
September 12, 2023

Women in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee filed legal actions against their states over abortion bans, saying they were denied abortions despite having dangerous pregnancy complications.

Four women in Idaho -- Jennifer Adkins, Jillaine St.Michel, Kayla Smith and Rebecca Vincen-Brown -- and abortion providers filed a suit against the state, Gov. Brad Little, attorney general and the state's board of medicine, claiming the state's ban has "sown confusion, fear and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the balance across the state," according to a copy of the lawsuit shared with ABC News.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-doctors-announce-legal-action-abortion-bans-3/story?id=103055654

Travis County judge sides with Texas women denied abortions after dangerous pregnancies

Ryan Autullo, Austin American-Statesman
Aug 4, 2023

A state judge in Travis County ruled Friday that abortions in Texas are lawful in cases of dangerous pregnancy complications, including fatal fetal diagnoses, and that doctors cannot be prosecuted for using "good faith judgment" on when to terminate a pregnancy.

The injunction from District Judge Jessica Mangrum, which the state immediately blocked Friday in filing an appeal, comes two weeks after four Texas women came to her court to give emotional testimony about not receiving an abortion, even as they suffered physically and after doctors deemed their pregnancies incompatible with life. It marked the first time women denied abortions have sued a state since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Continued: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/08/04/austin-texas-judge-lifts-abortion-ban-for-women-with-risky-pregnancies/70534072007/