Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants the SEC to investigate Tesla’s board, physicians are warning against hormonal birth control misinformation, and an abortion rights campaign struggled to place an ad in Times Square. Have a great weekend.
– Top billing. Earlier this month, the coalition Don’t Ban Equality, which rallies businesses to support abortion rights, began the process of placing an ad in New York’s Times Square. “Abortion access is every business’s business,” the digital billboard was set to read, alongside a list of signatories. The ad aimed to raise awareness in the lead-up to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments next week in a case deciding the accessibility of abortion pill mifepristone—which now accounts for 63% of abortions in the U.S.
But after submitting the ad to TSX Broadway, which runs short, affordable digital ads on its 18,000 square-foot billboard, the group received a rejection notice in early March. “Abortion and [sic] is a political topic in the U.S which is not allowed in our platform,” read the response, which Don’t Ban Equality shared with Fortune.
A gigantic billboard declining to run an ad related to abortion was perhaps not that surprising; other issues considered political, like support for Israel or Ukraine, are also often rejected. But what followed shocked Jen Stark, co-director of the Center for Business and Social Justice and Don’t Ban Equality leader.
Don’t Ban Equality connected with media buying firm Five Tier to place its ad elsewhere. The campaign changed the language of its ad from “abortion access is every business’s business” to “reproductive health is every business’s business.” And still the ad was rejected from all major digital billboards in Times Square; most didn’t give a reason. While Five Tier declined to confirm how many billboard owners it approached, Times Square’s official website lists 15.
“We were surprised it was so challenging to place the ad,” says Stark. “The rejections just piled up.”
This week, the campaign ended up placing its ad on a billboard at 54th and Broadway, north of Times Square. The billboard is controlled by a women-led company that requested not to be named, the campaign said. The ad ran on March 20 with the toned-down “reproductive health” language.
Don’t Ban Equality has successfully placed ads with the word “abortion” in major newspapers including the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle without issue. But the real estate investors, landlords and media networks that control Times Square, with its massive crowds of people, proved to be more risk-averse. TSX, the first entity to reject the ad, didn’t respond to request for comment.
The ad that ran slightly further uptown was signed by employers including Bumble, Lyft, Match Group, Warner Music Group, and Yelp. Some of those companies helped pay for the ad, which was more expensive than initially intended.
To Stark, the incident showed how crucial it still is to advocate for abortion rights—especially among businesses, like those that control New York’s most famous center of advertising. “It’s hard to protect a right if brands can’t talk about it,” says Stark. “Especially in Times Square, which is the town square for brands to give voice to issues they care about.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Weighing offers. Shari Redstone, president of Paramount's parent company National Amusements, is reportedly unsatisfied with Apollo Global Management’s $11 billion offer for the entertainment company’s movie studio. Sources say Redstone is instead negotiating a potential majority-stake acquisition of National Amusements by private equity investor David Ellison. Financial Times
- Warnings from Warren. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) again asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the board of Tesla is truly independent from CEO Elon Musk and the other companies he owns. Warren says she questions whether the Tesla board had properly disclosed the possible risks Musk's other companies pose to shareholders. The Wall Street Journal
- C-Suite synergy. e.l.f Beauty CMO Kory Marchisotto and CFO Mandy Fields were the first women to join the cosmetic company's C-suite in 2019. In a new interview with Fortune, the duo describe how the unusual relationship they fostered between marketing and finance has powered e.l.f’s 20 consecutive quarters of growth. Fortune
- False negatives. Physicians are warning against a growing wave of misinformation spread by right-wing pundits and social media influencers who claim hormonal birth control is causing negative health effects like infertility, weight gain, and mental illness. Some young women swayed by the false narratives are turning toward less effective alternatives at a time when states are stripping abortion rights around the country. The Washington Post
- Success after edits. Doctors performed the first successful transplant of a pig kidney into a man in Boston last weekend thanks to the CRISPR gene editing technology developed by scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. The technology, which earned the two scientists the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was used to remove pig diseases from the organ and ensure that it was compatible with the human body.
Correction: Karat, the company that conducts interviews for Citi and Walmart, was incorrectly referred to as Spector in yesterday's newsletter. The company's cofounder and president is Jeff Spector.
ON MY RADAR
Mona: Australian art museum sued over women's-only exhibit BBC
Women's NCAA Tournament blew up in 2021 over inequality. It was a blessing in disguise USA Today
The Trumpification of Kristi Noem The New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"We as Americans, we fight for freedoms—plural."
— Vice President Kamala Harris describing why she's not concerned that voter enthusiasm on abortion rights will decrease in the lead up to the election
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