A 'painfully American problem:' At SXSW, Chelsea Clinton, Bumble exec talk abortion access
When South By Southwest held its major abortion panel a year ago, the largest ballroom was filled with people wanting to hear from abortion advocates Amanda Zurawski and Samantha Casiano along with Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, and Elizabeth Monteleone, chief legal officer for Austin-based online dating platform Bumble Inc.
This year, Northrup and Monteleone returned along with Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation and producer of the documentary "Zuwarski v. Texas;" and Jamila K. Taylor, the president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
This year, the focus was on what businesses could do to support abortion access. The convention center room was only one-third full, while a line outside the room snaked through several levels to see a keynote with actor Joe Manganiello next door.
Clinton said access to abortion "is not just about patient health and well-being, it is a matter of society, economic and fiscal health."
She meets people who will say to her: "It's terrible what's happening to women in Arkansas," where she grew up before her father became president; "It's terrible what's happening in Texas. It's terrible what's happening in Idaho." Then she turns it to, "Do you see what's happening in America in the year of our Lord 2025?"
Abortion access is a "painfully American" problem, "one we think that everyone needs to bear witness to," Clinton said.
Northup said Americans "have to have a rallying cry: 'Remember Dobbs,'" a play on the Texas slogan "Remember the Alamo" and a reference to the 2022 Supreme Court decision that undid the abortion access protections of 1973's Roe v. Wade decision.
Taylor delivered the statistics of why this is a business problem with recent study from her Institute for Women's Policy Research: The U.S. economy loses $68 billion a year because of a lack of access to abortion, and Texas loses $16 billion a year.
This is due to women not being able to participate in the labor force in the way that women with access to abortion can, she said.
"Abortion restrictions continue to be hugely unpopular, and it is having a broad effect," Taylor said.
The Dobbs decision and the Senate Bill 8 in Texas in 2021 caused Bumble to re-evaluate its health insurance and change its policies to include travel funds, women's reproductive health benefits through Maven Clinic, postpartum and other mental health support through Spring Health, and even change its health insurance company to offer more reproductive health.
"It was a no-brainer,' she said. These laws "have real impact to our employees."
Northrup encourages employees, both men and women, to visit with their benefits coordinator and ask for the coverage they need: that can include travel benefits to access care, in vitro fertilization and other fertility coverage, mental health care, and better parental health leave.
Benefits like these are what employees want and seek when applying for jobs, Monteleone said, and they are using the coverage. At her company, 50% of employees have used the Maven and the Spring Health benefits.
Clinton encouraged employees to also ask their companies to give paid-time off for voting. "When everyone participates in our democracy — even if you don't agree with me, I want you to vote —that is how we have a restored sense that our democracy is us."
Clinton also took a stab at Texas politicians including the Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Texas Supreme Court justices and legislators. "They do not represent the will of the people in the state," she said.
"We have to move from seeing this as a social issue into a business issue or an employee issue," Monteleone said. "... It is health care. That is something companies should be able to get behind because it is impacting your workforce."
While many employers won't post on social media about reproductive care access or put up a billboard in Times Square like Bumble has, they can go to their state legislators and U.S. senators and representatives to lobby for access for their employees.
They can remind lawmakers that "their employees don't want to work in the state of Texas or the other states where abortion is banned," Northup said.
A recent Institute for Women's Policy Research survey of 10,000 people found that 1 in 5 were moving or knew someone who was moving out of a state because of abortion access.
"It's not safe for anyone that is of reproductive age to be in a state that bans abortion access," Northup said. "... It's not a good business environment."
Taylor backed it up with a statistic: hospitals in states without abortion access have a 62% higher maternal death rate than hospitals in states with access. Infant mortality rates also increase, she said.
"Starting the conversation is so important,' Northrup said. For more information, businesses can email corporateinfo@reprorights.org.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: SXSW speaker: Lack of abortion access costs Texas $16 billion per year
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