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EA won't take public stance on abortion rights

EA won't take public stance on abortion rights

US publishing giant Electronic Arts has told staff that it won't be making any public statements on abortion rights.

As reported by Kotaku, EA recently held a town hall meeting with employees on Tuesday, May 24th, in which it was asked by staff to take a public stance on healthcare issues like abortion or trans rights. Furthermore, the company apparently said that “being an inclusive company means being inclusive of all those points of view." Chief people officer Mala Singh apparently said that EA will only speak out on a topic if it stands to “actually have a positive impact."

“The thing about the world today is there is a lot of division, we know this right, we see it every single day, but the thing that unites us is that we’re all here to make amazing games and experiences for our players, and that is how we have the most positive impact on the world,” she said.

“These things are hard and they’re personal and we all have our own perspectives and sometimes we won’t speak, and that will be upsetting and I understand that, we really do.”

This comes in the wake of news the US Supreme Court is preparing to overturn the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling which made abortion legal. Many states already have trigger laws in place to outlaw abortion should Roe be overturned.

"We work to create an environment where our employees can talk about complex issues in our world today," corporate comms director Lacey Haines said in a statement.

"We do this in a number of ways, from Town Halls to Slack discussions, group dialogues, surveys, and more. From all of that, we recognize these topics are deeply personal, and we know that there are many strong opinions, and some will be disappointed when we say that we’re not making public statements because we’re focused on the ways we can support our people around the world as their employer. That is what we’re doing, in this case, making sure that people have access to the healthcare benefits we provide as a company, even if those aren’t available locally."

In the wake of the Roe v Wade news, Destiny firm Bungie and developer Certain Affinity have condemned the seemingly forthcoming decision.

Disclaimer: Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist and writer who has worked with EA on projects in the past.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.