The Patriot Post® · Starbucks and Abortion Extremism
Like the frothing Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) expressing her outrage at the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, several of America’s biggest businesses have bubbled up to issue their leftist woke virtue signal in support of abortion. That includes the world’s most famous coffee brewer, Starbucks.
Last week, Starbucks acting executive vice president Sara Kelly released a public letter to all of the coffee chain’s 240,000 employees noting that, in light of the unprecedented leak of the Court’s likely decision on Roe, the company will now introduce a new policy to its employee healthcare plan that effectively amounts to abortion tourism.
“Regardless of where you live or what you believe,” Kelly explained, “partners enrolled in Starbucks healthcare will now be offered reimbursement for eligible travel expenses when accessing abortion or gender-affirming procedures when those services are not available within 100 miles of a partner’s home.”
It’s certainly interesting how those on the woke Left love to declare their supposed respect for other people’s beliefs, while at the same time shoving their ideology onto everyone. In the case of Starbucks, using company money to finance something so divisive is ostensibly being a good “partner.” But anyone who’s ever been in a relationship knows that unilaterally shoving a decision upon another person and then demanding his or her acquiescence and support is not how respectful, healthy relationships work.
Furthermore, Starbucks is literally engaged in financially supporting the killing of preborn children, the destruction of families, and the promotion of gender dysphoric bodily disfigurement, all while claiming to be doing “good.”
The question is this: Will this woke virtue signaling backfire? Years ago, when Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was already busy pushing a leftist agenda, he insisted, “Not every decision is an economic decision.” However, when it comes to a business’s bottom line, that sentiment rings hollow. Schultz himself has been working to prevent workers in his company from unionizing. So, when it comes to those leftist virtue signals, they are exposed for just what they are — attempts to win woke accolades that will be good for business. That’s what this latest announcement on abortion tourism is really all about. Will it work, or has America’s most leftist coffee company taken a huge Disney-like misstep?
Will Americans begin shunning this ultra-woke virtue signaling in larger and larger numbers? Starbucks leaders have made it clear which side of the abortion debate they are on, and, unlike many other political disagreements, this one has a moral black and white characteristic with little room for nuance.