Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, urged executives to reconsider basing their companies in “a state that is stripping away the dignity of its residents.” Most workers, he wrote, did not want to live under a strict abortion ban. There was no immediate response to his tail. Companies that thrived in Texas’ free-business environment weren’t about to go away because of legally-challenged abortion regulations that weren’t certain to be enforced. Ten months later, the political and legal landscape is radically different. And a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the right to abortion now threatens to reshape the lines of economic competition between conservative and liberal states. For companies anchored in economically vibrant conservative states like Texas, Tennessee and Georgia, the rollback of women’s rights is no longer a hypothetical scenario but an immediate challenge. It represents a potential disruption in the calculation that has made Republican-led Sun Belt states attractive to big corporations, which tend to embrace reduced taxes and regulations while treating local social policy as something of a sideshow. This agreement may have been made more difficult in states that have imposed punitive restrictions on abortion, banning the procedure altogether or restricting it almost to the point of elimination. Some of the nation’s largest businesses, including JPMorgan Chase, AT&T and the Walt Disney Company, have already announced they will take steps to help employees who need access to abortion but cannot obtain it in their states. No major announcements have yet been made about companies canceling expansions or relocating offices outside of jurisdictions where abortion is now prohibited. In states like Texas and Georgia, Republican lawmakers are essentially betting that the local business environment will remain attractive enough to overcome women’s rights concerns. And for some conservative politicians, the risk of alienating business investment is a price worth paying to eliminate abortion. The implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling could be more dangerous for states that share Texas’ economic and social policies but lack its long standing as an economic powerhouse — states like Arkansas and Oklahoma, which have passed some of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.

Read more at End of Roe v. Wade

‘Pro-Life Generation’: Many young women mourned the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. For others it was a moment of triumph and a human rights issue. A shift in demographics?: Cities around the South have challenged the supremacy of coastal megacities, attracting creative young people. Will abortion bans put an end to this? New York’s Evolving Battle: Before Roe v. Wade, New York City was a haven for women from across the country. Decades later, a new generation of supporters has vowed to keep it that way.

In places where abortion laws are now hotly contested, some business leaders are urging politicians to proceed with caution. “An extreme reaction is not in the competitive interest of the state,” said Sandy Baruah, president of the Detroit Regional Chamber, an influential business association in Michigan. “To the extent that the data shows today that young professionals are interested in this issue, I don’t want to give young professionals a reason not to come to Michigan to work for Michigan companies.” Mr. Baruah’s group responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling with a statement imploring state officials not to do anything that could make Michigan less welcoming to recruiting businesses. The state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and the Republican-controlled Legislature are currently at loggerheads over the fate of a nearly century-old abortion ban that was struck down by Roe v. Wade but never formally repealed. Mr. Baruah acknowledged that some states, such as Texas, may be so well established as business havens that they could avoid concerns about abortion rights and recruiting talent. Of his own state, Mr. Baruah said, “Michigan needs every advantage it can get.” In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, issued a similar warning Wednesday as he issued an executive order strengthening abortion rights in the state. Mr. Cooper, who has vowed to veto any abortion ban passed by the Republican legislature, said any such measure “would have a negative impact on economic growth here in our state.” Some Republican-controlled states that already have abortion limits, such as Florida and South Carolina, are considering whether to tighten them even more. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, perhaps the most prominent conservative governor, has enacted a 15-week ban, but some state lawmakers are pushing for a so-called heartbeat bill that would bar all but first abortions. Gina Raimondo, the nation’s commerce secretary, said in an interview that states that impose strict abortion bans are bound to suffer financially. “I’ve talked to CEOs who are reviewing these states,” said Ms. Raimondo, a Democrat. “I think the cumulative effect will, over time, be quite significant.” Big companies are waging a “war for talent,” Ms. Raimondo said, and especially for female talent, since women make up a growing majority of young college graduates. A former governor of Rhode Island, Ms. Raimondo predicted that companies would struggle to hire skilled workers in states where women’s rights and medical services were severely curtailed. There’s data to support that view: A survey released this month by the Pew Research Center found that more than 3 in 5 people with college and graduate degrees disapproved of the Supreme Court decision, along with nearly 70 percent of people under 30 years old. Sixty-two percent of women disapproved of the decision, according to the survey. A young and educated group of workers has been pushing companies in recent years to be more vocal about issues of broader social concern, including gay rights and racial justice, putting some big companies at odds with the conservative states they call home. . Some liberal states are already portraying their abortion rights policies as a business advantage, boosting the appeal of the wealthier and more progressive states that many businesses choose to call home despite their taxes. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, has suggested that companies should consider his state’s ironclad protections of abortion rights as an incentive to expand there. Mr. Pritzker, a billionaire venture capitalist before entering politics, said in a recent interview that his administration included information about Illinois’ abortion laws in corporate hiring, particularly since the court’s draft opinion leaked in a Politico article in early May. As a political matter, Mr. Pritzker urged Democrats to build on the message that abortion restrictions were bad for the economy. “A Democratic president and vice president, Democrats more broadly, should be talking about this first as an issue of individual rights and freedom and second as an economic issue,” he said. “Employees care about that.” It is not the first time in recent years that right-wing social policies have caused a stir in business competition at the state level. In 2016, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina sparked a years-long business boycott by passing a law — known as the “bathroom bill” — requiring transgender people to use facilities that match their birth gender. Two years earlier, the business community in Arizona mobilized in force against so-called religious freedom legislation that could have opened the door to discrimination against LGBTQ people. In Virginia, a 2012 effort by far-right lawmakers to require women to undergo invasive ultrasounds before an abortion angered moderate voters and corporate leaders, helping install a pro-business Democrat as governor next year. In 2011, Mississippi’s business community rallied to defeat a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have granted legal rights to a fertilized egg, defying the then-current Roe v. Wade decision. But even amid this controversy, a handful of large, conservative states like Texas, Florida and Georgia have defied predictions that anti-gay policies or laissez-faire gun laws would deter new investment. Indeed, Republican governors have recently become more willing to defy big business: When Disney recently voiced disapproval of a Florida law restricting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, Mr. DeSantis responded with a scathing attack . Scott Reid, a Republican strategist who served as a top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, questioned whether abortion laws would greatly undermine the economic appeal of conservative states. “These red states with low taxes, low regulations, investment in education and roads — that’s the real contrast to these older blue states that are kind of falling apart,” Mr. Reid said. There is no recent precedent, however, for a right-wing sob in state politics on the scale of the abortion crackdown now underway in much of the United States. The full impact of the new restrictions is still uncertain in many states, and some bans are fraught with questions about how they will be enforced. A few, like Oklahoma’s total abortion ban, appear to be so sweeping that they could jeopardize other types of reproductive care, including some fertility treatments. In Texas, the largest and most prosperous state where abortion is now illegal, businessmen…