Stephan: I see an important trend developing as a result of Roe being overturned. Republican governance which on the basis of hard social outcome data can be proven to always be inferior to Democratic governance is inflicting yet another degradation of society in the Red states. We are beginning to see corporations rethink keeping their headquarters in Red states. Why? Some perhaps because they realize Republicans do not support gender equality. But mainly, I suspect, because recruiting the best most competent workers, particularly women, will get much more problematic. What smart, socially progressive fertile woman would want to work in a red state that could potentially put her life at risk? Who would move from a Blue state to a Red one? This trend, I believe, is going to have long-term implications. In the following stories I will illustrate other aspects of this post-Roe impact.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, urged executives to rethink basing their companies in Texas, which he called “a state that strips its residents of their dignity.” Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis / The New York Times
As a group of conservative states enacted severe abortion restrictions last year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois sent letters to a handful of corporate executives with close ties to Texas.
Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, urged executives to rethink basing their companies in “a state that strips its residents of their dignity.” Most workers, he wrote, did not want to live under a rigid abortion ban.
There was no immediate response to his overture. Companies thriving in Texas’ freewheeling business environment were not about to flee because of legally contested abortion regulations that were not certain to be enforced.
Ten months later, the political and legal landscape is radically different. And a Supreme Court decision that abolished the right to an abortion is now threatening to reshape the lines of economic competition between conservative and liberal states.
For companies anchored in economically vibrant conservative states like […]
