How Amazon and Google are 'proving to be complicit' by bankrolling both sides of the abortion debate: report

03 June 2023

Thanks to the United States Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling that established money as a constitutionally protected form of free speech, countless dollars have flowed into political campaigns, candidates, and causes.

On Saturday, The Guardianreported that Amazon, Google, and other giant companies have waded into the fight over reproductive freedom. The British outlet revealed that these entities have been making financial contributions to an organization that has bankrolled right-wing lawmakers in North Carolina who voted to overturn Democratic Governor Roy Cooper's veto of the state's twelve-week abortion ban.

"The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) received donations of tens of thousands of dollars each from corporations including Comcast, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Amazon, Bank of America and Google last year. The contributions were made in the months after Politico published a leaked supreme court decision indicating that the court would end the right to nationwide abortion access," The Guardian learned from an analysis conducted by the Center for Political Accountability (CPA).

"Google contributed $45,000 to the RSLC after the leak of the draft decision, according to the CPA's review of the tax filings," The Guardian explained. "Others contributed even more in the months after the leak, including Amazon ($50,000), Intuit ($100,000), and Comcast ($147,000)."

The paper noted that "although these companies did not directly give these vast sums to North Carolina's anti-abortion lawmakers, the CPA's analysis is a case study in how corporate contributions to organizations such as the RSLC can end up being funneled into anti-abortion causes. When Republican state legislators successfully overturned a veto from the Democratic governor last month to pass the upcoming abortion ban, nine of lawmakers voting to overturn the veto had received campaign contributions from a group with links to the RSLC."

Also pointed out by The Guardian is that "these donations are evidence that corporations are proving to be complicit in the broader movement to limit abortion rights, the CPA non-profit argues, even as many of these companies publicly tout women's empowerment and employee access to healthcare."

Moreover, these businesses have vested interests in both sides of the debate. Per The Guardian, "The companies which donated to the RSLC are also large donors to Democratic political groups, and tech giants such as Google and Amazon tend to spend millions each year more broadly on lobbying efforts."

The Guardian's report continues here.

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