The Businesses Impact on Public Policy

Sadly, it was affirmed this month that men’s rights are more important than children’s rights, women’s rights and human rights in our country. With SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade and the nearly 50-year precedent that federally protected women’s decision about whether and when to have children, more rights may be on the chopping block. Next year, SCOTUS could look at a case surrounding businesses’ right to refuse service to LGBTQ members .

Our politicians, both left and right, more than ever have perfected political talking points and because of the information overload, we as voters haven’t really thought through the impact of policy change.? How does it affect society downstream?? Do we have policies in place to make sure they don’t have unintended consequences?? Before I go into my thoughts, the beautiful thing about our democracy is compromise, which often gets us to the best solution for the majority.? It seems like we have lost our way with extreme behavior from both sides, and compromise seems to be casted as a weakness when it is truly our strength.

If we are honest, the debate around abortion is really about the right for women to live autonomously, and the lack of infrastructure to support those babies that are born. If one is truly “pro life,” then one has to be about making sure the child is provided for throughout its childhood (healthcare, food, housing, affordable childcare, education and love) to reduce the risk of mental health issues, and increase the chance that the child becomes a contributing adult in society, etc.??

Today, once the baby is born, the same politicians simply say, ‘best of luck to you,’ or at the very least don’t have an effective plan in place to make sure the child is cared for if born in a situation where the family can’t.? Anything less than this is filled with hypocrisy and is quite simply a talking point. It’s a way for someone to handle their guilt without really caring for the child forced into the world in bad circumstances or playing decision maker on who should survive—the mother or the child—when a woman has pregnancy complications and would die giving birth . Objectively, does this seem right or really thought through?

The ruling was focused on women’s reproductive rights.? If we are genuine about coming to a solution, I believe we should also start focusing on men’s reproductive rights, men’s rights and accountability—since it takes two to tango.? On the whole, men in our society do not carry the burden of childcare at the same level as women do, and that is just a fact supported by plenty of research .? If a woman is being forced to bring a child into the world no matter the circumstance, then the partner should be responsible for their portion of the caregiving and, at a minimum, the financial responsibility for the care of the child.? Right now the laws are structured such that if there is a dispute, it may be costly for the woman to fight it in court, it could take an extended period of time … while the child can’t wait, so there needs to be mechanisms to hold the partner accountable. This needs to be fixed.? If the child’s other DNA provider is a rapist or a deadbeat dad, then maybe their reproductive rights need to be dealt with. Not sure what the solution is, but the bottom line is putting the responsibility on the woman objectively isn’t equitable.

We must focus on how businesses can have an impact on public policy that isn’t aligned with the times.? The misalignment in my view is when politicians don’t have their constituents’ best interests as their priority, but rather their own.? The recent overturning of Roe v Wade matters for companies, because to operate effectively the rule of law must be dependable and stable.? These actions of reversing 50 years of accepted law makes the environment unstable to operate as a business.? Stable laws create environments where businesses can thrive.? Inconsistent or undependable regulation upends businesses because employees are their most important resource, and corporations are facing increased pressure to respond to social issues from their workforce and from consumers.??

Businesses have time and time again stepped up where the government seems to fail us. With the long-standing precedents being overturned by the country’s highest court, businesses are scrambling to respond by covering abortion-related travel costs for employees who live in states with trigger laws (which could potentially set them up for some legal red tape ), and Patagonia will bail out employees arrested in abortion protests. While we’re expecting people to fly everywhere, the truth is that none of these solutions are really going to influence or change the behavior of extremist people in power who made this ruling possible; you have to affect those politicians in a way that won’t get them re-elected. Politicians are there to support the will of the people and not cater to a small segment of society.? Those who are representing the majority of constituents properly need to be held accountable where it affects them the most … campaign financing.? They must not be rewarded for selfish behavior.? Always follow the money trail.?

In my view, the longer one is in power, the more disconnected they are from the will of the people.? If we want to take a long-term view on how to protect the democratic process and get back to a place of compromise, we must implement term limits across all parts of government: Congress, presidency and the courts.? History has shown us repeatedly that unlimited term limits have led to unlimited power, consistent inconsistency, and ultimately corruption.

For example, look at the two major rulings by SCOTUS in the last weeks.? It left it up to the states to decide whether or not abortion rights are protected, but expanded gun rights to carry with no permit and concealed weapons in public places, saying it can not to be left up to the states to decide and must be a national policy.? Both topics stem from freedom of choice, yet have very different rulings. This is consistently inconsistent.

We speak about guns and the recent wave of killings as a mental health issue. In some respects, we can’t decouple the rulings on these two issues: You bring a baby into the world in a bad situation, systemically don’t help them once they are born, create easy access to guns, and then expect it’s not a mental health issue. I personally think a possible compromise on gun policy is to let anyone who wants to have a gun own a gun—as long as they don’t have a history of violence—and then use geo-tracking technology to retrofit all guns with a chip that disables the gun from firing in public places.? The gun owners who do not want to retrofit their guns with the chip assume liability for misuse of the gun.? Everyone has a choice, and this allows gun owners to own what they want while protecting the general public from mass shootings. We already have this technology on our phones and cars, so it isn’t a big lift and isn't an invasion of privacy for all that own cell phones anyhow so that argument is defunct.?

This goes back to rather than simply pushing through laws, we must examine the consequences because those laws create a ripple effect. And we must be open to alternative solutions that support Americans’ varying viewpoints. For example, I was recently on flight with a man who shared with me that he was a hardcore conservative and avid hunter who was against any gun restrictrictions, until his college-aged liberal daughter informed him that simply implementing a five-day waiting period before getting a gun could reduce domestic violence by 80%. He figured if he couldn’t plan ahead to get a gun in advance of, say, his next hunting trip, it was a small price to pay to reduce domestic violence and deaths.? The point here is that most of us are reasonable and if we communicate our views in a manner that isn’t offensive, we can reach a compromise.

If there is a silver lining in any of this, it will be that some sort of bipartisan compromise will happen because Republicans and Democrats know that the will of the people on this topic needs resolution if they want to remain in office, and businesses can help by not financing politicians with extreme viewpoints. Most Americans are reasonable, we just have to reward politicians who are reasonable.? We as business leaders and constituents need to keep the pressure on Congress to do their job.

The heart of the matter is that America is about freedom and freedom of choice, we shouldn’t push our values on each other. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one. But don’t take away others’ federally protected right to make their own decisions. We have to stop trying to change each other’s values system and start thinking about the consequences of the laws that are being passed. As Oscar Wilde said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”