About

Meeting the Moment

In the three years since the fall of Roe, businesses – from corporations to small enterprises – have grappled with the fallout, recognizing abortion access as a workplace health, safety, and equity issue affecting over half of the workforce at various points in their career trajectories. 

Don’t Ban Equality engages its coalition of private sector allies to meet the moment at every turn - taking this work from the media into boardrooms and key corporate functions, including leads in human resources, government affairs, communications, marketing, community affairs, and of course, the courts and elected officials on understanding abortion access as a workforce and economic issue.

The impact of abortion bans and restrictions extends to miscarriage care, maternal health, IVF and infant mortality. 

To date, no company has experienced blowback for joining the platform. More importantly, no company that increased their benefits in the wake of Roe falling experienced any notable blowback for their actions.  

Meanwhile, state level restrictions and ongoing federal threats complicate efforts to attract and retain talent, administer benefits and enable community-level workforce readiness – harming both workers and state economies.

The untenable patchwork of state laws and tumultuous litigation landscape demands a federal standard that will clarify and codify access to reproductive healthcare for our workforce, ensuring their families and communities can access reproductive healthcare, without unnecessary bans and restrictions.

Core Partners

The Coalition is led by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Reproductive Freedom for All, The American Civil Liberties Union, Rhia Ventures, and National Women’s Law Center. Support comes from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Tara Health Foundation. Ongoing coordination and media support for the coalition is provided by McPherson Strategies and BSR serves as an advisor.

ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union
The Center for Reproductive Rights
Planned Parenthood
National Women's Law Center – Just for Her. Justice for All.
Rhia Ventures
The Reproductive Freedom for All Foundation

Our Story

Founded in 2019, in the wake of a historic spike in reproductive health restrictions in eight states, Don’t Ban Equality (DBE) is a platform of 1,300+ businesses, large to small, located in all 50 states, publicly traded and private, U.S. based and globally headquartered, making the case that abortion access is a workforce and economic issue.  

In 2019, companies were reaching out to leading national reproductive health organizations seeking guidance on how to address the rollbacks and discuss abortion as a workplace issue. More than 300 business leaders signed an open letter published in the New York Times that said “It’s time for companies to stand up for reproductive healthcare.”

In 2021, the platform was re-ignited when Texas enacted a law seeking to punish abortion providers and seekers, leading to more than 50 companies in the state signing a statement that the law would have a harmful impact on employers in the state, the world’s 8th largest economy.

A new wave of corporate signers joined in the wake of the SCOTUS decision leak and, ultimately, the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, with nearly 1000 companies joining the coalition over the course of 2022 and 2023.

As companies continued to navigate a fraught and dynamic national landscape, between 2022-2024 there were 10 state ballot measures addressing abortion access. Seven states passed ballot measures to support abortion access, three of which also voted for Trump. 

 In 2025, risks to data privacy, commerce, travel, and regulatory stability add cost, chaos, and uncertainty across business operations. At a time when businesses of all sizes need stability, reproductive healthcare restrictions have direct workforce and economic consequences. 

As of March 2025, we are seeing significant energy behind bill filing to restrict or outright block access to abortion, in a wide variety of categories including criminalizing patients and providers accessing healthcare, criminalizing third parties (including businesses), creating new barriers to healthcare provisions, and eroding successful 2024 ballot measures.  

 There are ongoing efforts to restrict or outright block access to abortion, in a wide variety of categories including criminalizing patients and providers accessing healthcare, criminalizing third parties (including businesses), creating new barriers to healthcare provisions, putting medication abortion out of reach and eroding successful ballot measures.  

Leadership Moments

  • In 2025, Newsweek’s inaugural America’s Best Colleges for Women list included analysis of state reproductive health policies, sourced from the Center for Reproductive Rights.

    The coalition engaged with partners in key states, including New York, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Texas, to educate the business community about threats or opportunities to access that have business impacts.

    We hosted events in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Northern Virginia to connect DBE signers and individual business executives supportive of the issues with each other.

    DBE brought our message back to SXSW, via a panel on the business case for reproductive freedom, featuring the Chief Legal Officer of Bumble and the CEO of Center for Reproductive Rights.  

  • In March 2024, Don’t Ban Equality signers collaborated to call on the business community to safeguard reproductive healthcare access via a powerful billboard in New York City.

    The digital billboard ad in New York's Times Square read, "Reproductive health is every business’s business," alongside a list of signatories.

    This initiative sought to raise awareness ahead of the Supreme Court's oral arguments concerning the accessibility of the abortion pill, mifepristone. This ad was created in partnership with media agency, FiveTier, and creative agency Beers With Friends.

    The project was selected as a Bronze Winner for the 4th Annual  Anthem Awards in the Health, Special Projects, and Awareness Categories.

    In October 2024, Don’t Ban Equality created a non-partisan awareness campaign in 3 key states to inform business leaders of the impact that ballot measures would have on their companies and local economies.

    This effort to drive the business impact narrative – contributed to wins in Missouri and Arizona, as well as reaching 57% of the vote in Florida (short of the 60% needed).

     

  • Despite headwinds in 2023, DBE mobilized more companies than ever before to join amicus briefs:

    • Worked with Center for Reproductive Rights and law firm Reed Smith to secure over 40 businesses and business leaders supporting the first private sector amicus post-Roe to demonstrate the materiality of abortion restrictions in the state of Texas. This is progress despite business reluctance to join a brief that says “vs Texas” when fear of retaliation is omnipresent.

    • Leveraged the open letter signed by nearly 300 biotech and pharmaceutical company leaders which slammed the Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling as undermining Congress’ delegated authority to the FDA to approve and regulate drugs to generate historic amicus briefs from powerful business associations in coordination with King & Spalding.

    • Worked with National Women’s Law Center to file a brief that included publicly traded companies which argue that reproductive healthcare restrictions are bad for the economy and businesses. They explain how state restrictions undermine medical judgment for patient treatment resulting in providers fleeing and ongoing challenges companies face to recruit and retain top talent when access to healthcare becomes a determining factor for workers and families.

    Don’t Ban Equality also worked with coalition partners in NC, OH, FL, VA, IN, SC and more to build out business support and support important conversations and ballot initiatives in key states.

    Notably, Don’t Ban Equality in North Carolina resulted in 300+ North Carolina businesses signed on to oppose legislation that would ban abortions at 12 weeks. The Rachel Maddow Show featured these corporate leaders’ efforts.

  • 75+ beauty and wellness brands banded together to make a standalone statement with Don’t Ban Equality about the wellbeing of the communities and customers they serve.

  • Where You Do Business Matters Ad Campaign in Commercial Observer

  • Texas companies stand up for reproductive healthcare.

    This 2021 statement ran in The Houston Chronicle and received exclusive coverage in The Wall Street Journal on September 21, 2021.

  • These companies signed on to the original 2019 statement which ran in The New York Times on Monday, June 10, 2019.

    Media Coverage: