The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Roe v. Wade any day now. The leaked draft opinion from May made this virtually certain. And corporate America is scrambling to figure out what to say and do.
Some companies have already announced they'll cover employee travel costs for out-of-state reproductive care. Amazon, Apple, Disney, Meta, Microsoft, Starbucks, Tesla, Yelp, Netflix. The list is growing daily. And I have deeply mixed feelings about all of it.
On one hand: these are material benefits that will genuinely help employees in states with trigger bans. That matters. When access becomes geography-dependent, employer-funded travel is a real lifeline for real people.
On the other hand: many of these same companies donated to the politicians who appointed the justices who are overturning Roe. AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, Amazon, Microsoft, and others gave significant sums to lawmakers who explicitly campaigned on ending abortion access. You don't get to fund the fire and then take credit for handing out fire extinguishers.
This is the credibility gap that haunts corporate activism. And consumers are getting better at spotting it every year.
A brand's position on an issue is not measured by its press release. It's measured by its PAC donations, its lobbying spend, and where it directs political capital when no one is watching.Here's what I'd say to any brand trying to navigate this moment:
If your political donations are inconsistent with your stated values, fix the donations before you make the statement. Otherwise, someone with a search engine and ten minutes will expose the contradiction and your statement becomes a liability instead of an asset.
If you're going to offer travel benefits, do it quietly and directly to your employees. The people who need this benefit need it to work. They don't need it to be a press release first and a benefit second.
If your brand has no natural connection to reproductive rights, it's okay to not have a public position. Not every brand needs to weigh in on every Supreme Court decision. Do the work internally. Support your employees. But resist the urge to make it about your brand.
The companies I respect most in this moment are the ones that announced their benefits quietly, directly to employees, without a press strategy attached. The ones that let the benefit be the statement, rather than making the statement the benefit.
We're entering a period where brands will be tested on this issue repeatedly. And the test isn't "do you have a statement?" The test is: "are your actions, your donations, and your words all saying the same thing?"
For most companies, the honest answer is no. And that's the work that needs to happen before anyone drafts a tweet.