PlayStation To Donate To Abortion Fund Following CEO’s Comments

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is reportedly planning to donate to an abortion fund after employees criticised the CEO’s stance on abortion rights. Last week, SIE CEO Jim Ryan sent an email, where he told them to “respect differences of opinion” on the topic of abortion in light of a leaked Supreme Court draft indicating that they intend to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which originally legalised abortion in the US.

In response, Insomniac Games plans to donate US$50,000 to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project. According to an internal email sent by Insomniac CEO Ted Price and viewed by The Washington Post, Sony will match the donation, as well as individual donations made by the studio’s employees through the company’s ‘PlayStation Cares’ programme.

However, Price said that PlayStation won’t allow any of its studios to publicly comment on reproductive rights.

He said:

“[SIE] will not approve ANY statements from any studio on the topic of reproductive rights. We fought hard for this and we did not win. As far as our freedom of speech goes, while we do have a LOT of autonomy that often gets taken for granted, there are times where we need to acknowledge we’re part of a larger organization. For the most part our ability to tweet has been unfettered. However there are rare times when we’re in opposition (like this week) and SIE will have the final say.”