When states ban abortion, they aren’t just harming women and families — they’re harming their economy. Recent studies, including one analyzing United States Postal Service change of address data, show that bans are driving thousands of highly skilled workers — especially women and young professionals planning to have children — to relocate. Workers won’t sacrifice their health or their futures for a paycheck, and businesses are feeling the impact. As talent moves to less-restrictive states, companies may struggle to compete, and the ripple effects could hit tax bases, housing markets, and broader economies.
Businesses thrive by attracting top talent, but in states with abortion restrictions, the pool may shrink, innovation may be limited, and recruiting top-tier employees is increasingly difficult. To remain competitive, companies must show employees they have their back. Here’s why:
First, talent is fleeing certain states — and the situation is only going to get worse. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion, states with abortion bans have lost an estimated 128,700 residents in the year after those bans went into effect, with single-person households (which skew younger) leading the exodus. Nearly one in five adults planning families have moved — or know someone who has — because of bans. And 62% of young adults (18-34) say they’d steer clear of states with these restrictions. Under a second Trump administration, with its clear hostility toward reproductive rights, those numbers are only going to climb.
These aren’t impulsive moves — they’re potentially life-or-death decisions. Strict anti-abortion bans in states like Idaho put everyone at risk, including those facing medical emergencies. For example, Kayla Smith moved with her husband and daughters from Idaho to Washington after being denied abortion care for a dangerous pregnancy. Similarly, Jillaine St. Michel moved her family to Minnesota after Idaho’s ban blocked her from getting an abortion after a devastating fetal diagnosis. She feared for her own health — and for her toddler daughter’s future. “It just felt like [an] unnecessary risk to take to remain in the state,” she said. And that was before the Department of Justice dropped a case defending emergency abortion care in Idaho earlier this month, putting patients and their doctors at even greater risk.
Second, reproductive rights enable positive economic mobility. Delaying motherhood by just one year usually means earning higher wages down the road. But when a woman is denied an abortion, she is, five years later, three times more likely to be unemployed and four times more likely to live in poverty than a woman who had an abortion. When abortion is denied, the fallout is brutal: more debt, more evictions, and more financial instability.
And it’s not just the economy taking a hit. Medical residency applications have declined in restrictive states for two years straight. Doctors want to train and work where they can provide medical care their patients might need, not where they could be sent to prison for just doing their jobs. More doctors and medical residents leave states with abortion bans, and more hospitals are closing their obstetric units. As a result, 35% of counties across the country have become maternity-care deserts (areas with no hospitals or birth centers providing obstetric care, and no obstetric providers). In Texas, the situation is especially dire: 46.5% of counties in Texas are maternity-care deserts. This leaves those communities with extremely limited access to reproductive care.
Third, most employees expect companies to support reproductive rights, and nearly 40% prefer employers who actively advocate for access to reproductive health care. Companies that stay silent risk losing talent to competitors that don’t.
So what can companies do? Use the Center for Reproductive Rights’ framework of “Respond-Support-Act.”
Respond by educating yourself and your leadership team on changes in reproductive healthcare policy and law, as well as best practices for employers. You can do that in partnership with your company’s legal team, or with a community of company partners at the Center for Reproductive Rights, or by consulting resources from Don’t Ban Equality, a coalition of more than 1,000 businesses in all 50 states making the case that abortion is a workforce issue.
Then, support your employees by updating your healthcare benefits and policies and filling any gaps in reproductive care coverage. (The Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass, the first-of-its-kind standard for employers to measure benefits, can help.) Include coverage for travel support, abortion care, and paid leave for pregnancy loss. Consider allowing employees to relocate and work remotely from states that support reproductive rights, as the dating app Bumble and Google did after Roe was overturned.
Finally, act externally to support reproductive healthcare access. When you next meet with the lawmakers you already educate on a host of business issues, tell them why employers need and want public policy that provides workers access to safe, convenient, reliable reproductive healthcare. Sign statements about reproductive healthcare access, sign amicus briefs in litigation that could expand or defend healthcare access, even pen op-eds. There’s safety in numbers and a lot to do, even behind closed doors.
Some leaders may fear that speaking up will invite backlash, particularly as companies face criticism and scrutiny on so many fronts. Remember this, though: The vast majority of Americans support abortion access. Since Roe was overturned, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio — all states that Donald Trump won last November — voted to protect abortion access through their state constitutions, joining seven other states that have also done so. And 56% of employed adults believe companies should work with lawmakers to protect access to reproductive rights.
The takeaway? Protecting healthcare isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s smart business.
Nancy Northup is President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization whose game changing litigation and advocacy work have transformed how reproductive rights are understood by courts, governments, and human rights bodies.
