16 Dec 2023 4:10 pm
Ambiguities in Texas’s abortion ban are making it harder for businesses in the state to recruit, a coalition of businesses argued Thursday.
Fifty-one businesses have signed onto an amicus brief filed by in-house counsel at dating site Bumble, which was filed in support of 22 women suing the state over the abortion ban.
The plaintiffs in that case — Zurawski v. Texas — are 20 former patients who argue that they were denied medically necessary abortions because physicians were afraid of legal consequences.
As a tech company largely run by women, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said she feels it has a duty not just to provide access to health care, “but to speak out – and speak loudly – against the retrogression of women’s rights.”
The businesses signing onto the letter — which include dating sites Bumble and Match Group (the parent company of Match.com and Tinder), advertising giants Preacher and GSD&M, event organizers SXSW and the United States Women’s Chamber of Commerce as well as dozens of Texas real estate, law firms and restaurant groups — argued that the state’s abortion laws make it unattractive for families looking to move to a place where they can have children.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Texas has enacted a near-total ban on abortion after a fetus has a heartbeat, which typically occurs around 6 weeks into pregnancy and often before a woman knows she is pregnant.
After that point, the state allows the procedure only when it’s deemed medically necessary — an exception that the Zurawski plaintiffs, and others, argue is overly ambiguous and has not translated into legal abortions in the real world.
The uncertainty in those laws “has impacted, and will continue to impact, companies doing business in Texas, companies thinking about doing business in Texas, employees living in or traveling to Texas, and individuals considering relocating to Texas,” the companies wrote in the letter.
Fifty-one businesses have signed onto an amicus brief filed by in-house counsel at dating site Bumble, which was filed in support of 22 women suing the state over the abortion ban.
The plaintiffs in that case — Zurawski v. Texas — are 20 former patients who argue that they were denied medically necessary abortions because physicians were afraid of legal consequences.
As a tech company largely run by women, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said she feels it has a duty not just to provide access to health care, “but to speak out – and speak loudly – against the retrogression of women’s rights.”
The businesses signing onto the letter — which include dating sites Bumble and Match Group (the parent company of Match.com and Tinder), advertising giants Preacher and GSD&M, event organizers SXSW and the United States Women’s Chamber of Commerce as well as dozens of Texas real estate, law firms and restaurant groups — argued that the state’s abortion laws make it unattractive for families looking to move to a place where they can have children.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Texas has enacted a near-total ban on abortion after a fetus has a heartbeat, which typically occurs around 6 weeks into pregnancy and often before a woman knows she is pregnant.
After that point, the state allows the procedure only when it’s deemed medically necessary — an exception that the Zurawski plaintiffs, and others, argue is overly ambiguous and has not translated into legal abortions in the real world.
The uncertainty in those laws “has impacted, and will continue to impact, companies doing business in Texas, companies thinking about doing business in Texas, employees living in or traveling to Texas, and individuals considering relocating to Texas,” the companies wrote in the letter.