The videoconferencing company Zoom has become a household name during the coronavirus crisis. Families and friends, businesses and teachers have been using it to connect to people from the safety of their homes.
But unbeknownst to many, the company supports abortion on demand. Live Action broke news Tuesday about Zoom founder Eric Yuan’s abortion advocacy.
Yuan, who is worth $6.9 billion, according to Forbes, signed an open letter in 2019 that slammed states for passing pro-life laws to protect unborn babies from abortions.
He joined about 180 other U.S. company leaders in signing the letter published in the New York Times.
“Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence and economic stability of our employees and customers,” Yuan and the other CEOs wrote in the letter. “Simply put, it goes against our values and is bad for business.”
The letter largely came in response to state heartbeat laws, which attempted to ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks of pregnancy. None of the laws are in effect due to legal challenges from the abortion industry.
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The company leaders claimed the pro-life laws would hinder “our ability to build diverse and inclusive workforce pipelines, recruit top talent across the states, and protect the well-being of all the people who keep our businesses thriving day in and out. The future of gender equality hangs in the balance, putting our families, communities, businesses and the economy at risk.”
Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights organized the letter. Others who signed it included Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as well as business owners of Yelp, H&M, Slack, Postmates, Bloomberg L.P. and Warby Parker.
At the time, Zoom was not as widely used. Still, Yuan’s signature did prompt at least one Catholic diocese to stop using the company for its videoconferencing in 2019.
According to the Catholic News Agency, the Catholic Diocese of Gallup in New Mexico sent a letter to its schools and parishes in the fall of 2019 explaining why it will no longer use Zoom for meetings and presentations.
“… we cannot contribute to a company with anti-life policies,” the letter stated. “It is distressing that the CEOs who paid for the ad call abortion restrictions ‘bad for business’, as if the life of a human being can be measured solely in monetary and economic value. We wholeheartedly reject this view.”
It continued: “Each human, made in the image and likeness of God, is inherently worthy and has a right to life, from conception to natural death. We do not want to lose even a single future child, future student, future mother, father, sister or brother to abortion.”
The diocese told CNA that it hoped its decision would help raise awareness and prompt other pro-lifers to find alternative videoconferencing services.
