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Disney's No to Planned Parenthood; Every Studio's Anti-Abortion💰

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Disney's No to Planned Parenthood; Every Studio's Anti-Abortion💰

Mouse House Slack fumes over employee matching grants; the industry's back-alley donations

Peter Kiefer
and
Matthew Frank
Jun 28, 2022
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Disney's No to Planned Parenthood; Every Studio's Anti-Abortion💰

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(Photo: Joe Sohm/Visions of America)

In light of recent events, it seemed timely to examine the role entertainment plays in the current conversation around abortion. This newsletter contains two parts examining where money is committed.


Disney’s Corporate Matching Question

The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade continues to reverberate across the entertainment industry with the Walt Disney Company — again — running afoul of at least some of its employees’ beliefs about their rights.

Like most major media-conglomerates, Disney offers select employees a generous corporate matching gift program. For every dollar donated to charity, Disney will match the donation (from $25 up to $25,000) but only to approved charities that meet the company’s standards (an internal memo outlines the criteria in 14 separate bullet points). That’s where things get interesting. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision — and the company’s affirmation that it would pay for abortion-related travel for its employees —Disney’s internal Slack channels were abuzz after several employees discovered that Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit practically synonymous with providing women with reproductive health care and basic medical and social services was not approved for Disney’s matching gift program. (The organization receives a “platinum” rating from Guide Star.) Neither was the long-established Center for Reproductive Rights.

Disney’s matching gift platform

This is not the case for all media companies of Disney’s size and stature. Netflix’s corporate matching gift program includes Planned Parenthood on its list of approved charities and nonprofits and the streamer matches up to 200 percent of an eligible employee’s donation (The Ankler was unable to determine which, if any, of the other majors have Planned Parenthood as part of their respective corporate matching gift program). Planned Parenthood shares a spot on a list at Disney that also includes the National Rifle Association deemed ineligible for matching funds.

On Friday, in the wake of the high court’s ruling, Disney joined dozens of other companies pledging to cover employee travel costs for “family planning” for employees who can't access care where they live. That includes “pregnancy-related decisions”. Disney’s matching program does have some anti-abortion (or at the very least pro-life-adjacent) non-profits and charities. For example, employees can donate to Florida-based Sanford Crisis Pregnancy center which, according to its website, lays out it’s mission as such:

All this comes at an extremely sensitive time for Disney CEO’s Bob Chapek, unwittingly thrust into a national debate over what age and under what conditions children should learn about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. After intense internal pushback among employees, Disney decided to oppose Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Parental Rights In Education — the so-called “Don't Say Gay” bill — which triggered a backlash by conservatives. Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature took the extraordinary step of stripping Disney of its special tax status that the company had benefited from for more than 50 years. Florida banned abortions in the wake of the Roe reversal after 15 weeks, including in cases of rape and incest.

It's unclear which of the 14 criteria for “ineligible organizations” Planned Parenthood triggered at the company. A Disney spokesperson tells The Ankler “the company has been in the process of reviewing its matching gifts program and remains attuned to employee feedback.”

In 2020, Disney reportedly gave $452,630 — 53 percent of its political donations for that year — to anti-choice candidates or their associated PACs.

Which brings us to…


Now Let’s Follow the Money

We’re skeptical of claims that this or that event “changed everything” but last week’s Roe decision is going to change a lot. Particularly, the idea that politics is a consequence-free game.

Further, we’ve come through an era where corporations got involved in politics to look after their own narrow interests. That’s going to become a harder position for studios to cling to in the years ahead.

Hollywood studios are staffed and managed to an enormous extent by progressives. And if you look at the overall tilt of studio giving, you’ll find it tilts heavily to the left. But heavily to the left leaves plenty of room to cover your bases, which is what the studios have done in their contributions: spreading money far and wide to politicians whose goals are at odds with what the studios often publicly proclaim (see last week’s hurried “we’ll pay for travel to get an abortion” messaging).

In the days ahead, the studios are going to come under a great deal of pressure to use their clout to join the fight for their female employees to exercise reproductive freedom in states that have enacted trigger laws. Some already have made steps in that direction. But we thought it would be interesting to take a look at how we got here, money-wise.

While backing any politician who might help them get a tax break or carve out, or push something through committee that might need pushing, the studios were also supporting people who contributed to the current state of affairs. Here’s merely a partial list of donations, past and present, from our standard bearers to anti-abortion candidates

according to Open Secrets and Followthemoney.org. All donations are from the 2022 election cycle, unless otherwise specified. For a fuller list of donations, we’ve assembled a Google Doc that you can read here. And for the record, no studio responded on the record when reached for comment.


Disney 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: WFLA

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Responsibility & Freedom Work PAC: $10,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Roger Wicker)

  • Sen. Marco Rubio: $4,000

  • Sen. Mike Lee: $5,000

  • Sen. John Thune: $5,000

  • Sen. Tim Scott: $2,500

  • Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers: $6,500

  • Rep. Drew Ferguson: $1,500

  • Rep. Adam Kinzinger: $500

  • Rep. Dan Crenshaw: $500

  • Rep. Victoria Spartz: $500

  • more here


Comcast👇👇👇

Says this…

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Sen. John Boozman: $10,000

  • Sen. Mike Lee: $10,000

  • Sen. Jerry Moran: $10,000

  • Sen. John Thune: $10,000

  • Rely on Your Beliefs: $10,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Roy Blunt)

  • Alamo PAC: $10,000, (Affiliated with Sen. John Cornyn)

  • True North PAC: $10,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Dan Sullivan)

  • Rep. Brett Guthrie: $10,000

  • National Republican Congressional Committee: $30,208

  • National Republican Senatorial Committee: $30,150

  • more here


Paramount Global 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: Los Angeles Times

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Heartland Values PAC: $2,500 (Affiliated with Sen. John Thune)

  • MARSHA PAC: $2,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Marsha Blackburn)

  • Hawkeye PAC: $2,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Chuck Grassley)

  • One Georgia PAC: $1,500 (Affiliated with ex-Sen. David Perdue)

  • Project West PAC - $1,000 (Affiliated with ex-Sen. Cory Gardner)

  • Majority Committee PAC: $2,500 (Affiliated with Rep. Kevin McCarthy)

  • Eye of the Tiger PAC: $1,000 (Affiliated with Rep. Steve Scalise)

  • National Republican Senatorial Committee: $22,500

  • National Republican Congressional Committee: $15,000

  • more here


Amazon 👇👇👇

Says this….

Source: Reuters

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Sen. Bill Hagerty: $10,000

  • Lead Encourage Elect PAC: $10,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Mike Lee)

  • Sen. Chuck Grassley: $9,000

  • Sen. John Cornyn: $5,000

  • Senator Todd Young: $5,000

  • Believe In America PAC: $5,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Mitt Romney)

  • Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers: $10,000

  • Rep. Dan Newhouse - $10,000

  • National Republican Congressional Committee: $15,349

  • more here


Discovery (donations reflect pre-Warner Bros. merger) 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: DigitalTVEurope

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Fund for America's Future: $1,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Lindsey Graham)

  • Sen. Todd Young: $1,000

  • Rep. Michael McCaul: $1,000

  • PAC for America: $1,000


Sony Pictures 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: Los Angeles Times

Financially supports this…

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Sen. Tim Scott: $3,000

  • Sen. Jerry Moran: $3,000

  • Heartland Values PAC: $2,500 (Affiliated with Sen. John Thune)

  • North Carolina Red: $2,000 (Affiliated with Sen. Thom Tillis)

  • Sen. Chuck Grassley: $1,000

  • Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers: $3,000

  • Rep. Rodney Davis: $1,000

  • Rep. Chip Roy: $1,000

  • Rep. Tom McClintock: $1,000

  • Rep. Maria Salazar: $1,000

  • more here


Netflix 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: Variety

Financially supports this…

Twitter avatar for @SenMikeLee
Mike Lee @SenMikeLee
SCOTUS overturns Roe.
6:35 PM ∙ Jun 24, 2022
351Likes52Retweets

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Sen. Mike Lee: $10,400 (2016)

  • Good Fund: $5,000 (Affiliated with ex-Rep. Bob Goodlatte) (2016)

  • Rep. Darrell Issa - $5,000 (2016)


Apple 👇👇👇

Says this…

Source: Washington Post

Financially supports this...

Sample of Political Contributions to Anti-Abortion Candidates/Causes

  • Congressional Leadership Fund $5,000

  • Republican National Committee: $1,280 (2020)

  • more here


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Disney's No to Planned Parenthood; Every Studio's Anti-Abortion💰

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A guest post by
Matthew Frank
Ankler Intern
1 Comment
BartS
Jul 2, 2022

So people who want to get sex-change operations can fly the Thailand on these companies’ dimes? How about I I cliaim to need an abortion but really just a vacation?

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