Georgia abortion ban: NBC, Disney and Warner join threats of boycott

Media companies hit back at state over restrictive and controversial ‘heartbeat’ laws

A Stop The Bans protest in support of abortion rights in Atlanta, Georgia (Getty Images)

NBC Universal and WarnerMedia will reconsider working in Georgia if the state’s highly restrictive abortion ban goes into effect.

The companies on Thursday became the latest in wave of major media firms to formally push back against the state’s so-called “heartbeat” law, which bans abortions after six weeks. On Wednesday, the Walt Disney Company said the abortion ban meant they too would reconsider locating production in Georgia.

“If the new law holds we will reconsider Georgia as the home to any new productions,” a spokesperson for WarnerMedia said. “As is always the case, we will work closely with our production partners and talent to determine how and where to shoot any given project.”

NBC Universal also phrased their announcement as a possibility, suggesting that it was assuming the bill, which was written to be unconstitutional in one of several Republican-led attempts to challenge Roe v Wade, will not actually go into effect.

“We fully expect that the heartbeat bills and similar laws in various states will face serious legal challenges and will not go into effect while the process proceeds in court," NBCUniversal said in a statement on Thursday. "If any of these laws are upheld, it would strongly impact our decision-making on where we produce our content in the future.”

Georgia is a major filming location, and calls for boycotts from the Hollywood sector began immediately after Governor Brian Kemp signed the state’s abortion ban into law. Along with these three major companies, Netflix and several smaller studios have threatened or committed to filming elsewhere.

Nine states have so far passed abortion bans similar to Georgia's, amid fury and calls for boycotts around the nation.

In neighbouring Alabama, where an even more restrictive abortion ban was passed shortly after Georgia’s, the University of Alabama’s largest donor, Hugh Culverhouse Jr, called for a boycott of the state on Wednesday.

The University, which named its law school after Mr Culverhouse, is now contemplating returning his $21.5m in donations.

Governor John Bel Edwards, an anti-abortion rights Democrat, signed Louisiana’s abortion ban into law on Thursday. While not quite the production location that Georgia is, efforts to end filming for television and movies are already being discussed.

Additional reporting by Reuters