The Supreme Court could make something great happen in the future, but corporate bullies may try to stop states from doing the right thing.
The Supreme Court will hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, possibly in the fall. It involves a 15-week abortion ban passed in Mississippi in 2018 and has the potential to overturn pro-abortion rulings such as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. If the 6-3 conservative majority on the court were to overturn those past court rulings, it could give states more power to restrict abortion. Many pro-life states would take advantage of the opportunity. Many of them already have laws on the books that would outlaw most abortions if the Supreme Court overruled these cases entirely.
It’s great these states want to eliminate abortion. It would be a huge win for the right to life in this country. However, if states were to outlaw abortion, nearly outlaw abortion, or put significant restrictions on it, they would most likely face economic backlash. That’s something the pro-life cause must be aware of and know how to counteract if it occurs.
When Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp courageously signed a heartbeat abortion ban bill into law in 2019, companies and celebrities were ready to boycott the state. Georgia is a big film production state, so companies such as Disney, Netflix, and NBCUniversal threatened to boycott the state if the bill were to take effect. Let’s ignore that these companies film there because of a corporate welfare scam called film production tax credits and look at what they’re saying: They will take economic production away from your state because you don’t want unborn babies killed. That’s sickening.
We saw companies threaten to boycott Georgia this year because the state implemented new election laws. Major League Baseball even changed the location of its All-Star game in response, a move that President Joe Biden supported. Apparently, Biden only represents 49 states because singling out a state and punishing it economically is something a foreign adversary would do. So much for unity.
If the Supreme Court says states can outlaw or severely restrict abortion, and some red states capitalize on the opportunity, this will likely happen again. Thankfully, there are a lot of pro-lifers in this country. In a capitalist society, they also have economic buying power. If Major League Baseball were to take action against a state for outlawing abortion, the millions of pro-lifers in the country could punish it right back. People punished the NFL when Colin Kaepernick — and players who acted similarly to him — knelt for the national anthem. Kaepernick’s kneeling is a major reason why he can’t get a job in the NFL, and rightfully so. He was a detriment to the league. Meanwhile, the NBA seems to be losing fans for going woke and shilling for China.
If companies want to move their plants and headquarters out of states, there are often alternative businesses in the same sector that can provide the same or similar products and services. These may even include companies headquartered in said states that will stay even if they outlaw abortion.
The people worth punishing are the ones who want to inflict pain on states because they value human life. Pro-lifers want to save lives, and they deserve praise for that. They want to prevent something that ends far more lives than COVID-19 ever will. At the same time, the other side pretends to care about bodily autonomy — except they don’t support it for basically anything else. See what happens when a 20-year-old tries to drink a beer or smoke a cigarette.
If companies want to take a stand for abortion, they deserve to go as financially bankrupt as they are morally bankrupt. Or, they can stay out of this stuff and keep a broader audience.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
