Enter the Abortion Debate? Big Companies Can’t See the Upside
- Studios still filming after Georgia outlawed most abortions
- Only a handful of producers say they will boycott the state
Pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion demonstrators displaying their signs in the lobby of the Georgia State Capitol building in downtown Atlanta, March 22.
Photographer: Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionSeveral influential Hollywood producers have threatened to stop filming in Georgia, protesting the state’s new abortion law. But so far, none of the studios with projects currently underway there have plans to relocate, a sign that otherwise politically outspoken and liberal companies are loath to speak out on abortion.
In fact, the corporate silence on abortion in Georgia and elsewhere has been deafening, especially compared with corporations’ eagerness to demonstrate their support for other progressive social issues, such as LGBT rights. More than 200 companies, from Amazon.com Inc. to Xerox Corp., are supporting pending federal legislation that would extend civil rights laws to include protection for LGBT people. And hundreds of companies have lobbied on LGBT restrictions in Southern states.