With New York passing the Reproductive Health Act into law, Illinoisis set to be the next state to expand abortion rights in the face of Roe v. Wade either being severely neutered or overturned outright in the next few years. The bills should pass through the House and Senate en route to Gov. JB Pritzker (D)’s desk to sign these bills.
The proposed actions are gainingpraiseon the pro-choice side, while the anti-choice side are doing their usuallyingdistortionstoopposethisbill.
This is in contrast to neighboring states, especially Indiana and Missouri, that restrict abortion access and would like to make it even more restrictive and/or ban it.
The bills are HB2495 and SB1594.
The Reproductive Health Act (HB 2495), proposed in the Illinois House by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), would repeal a 1975 law that includes criminal penalties for doctors who offer abortion care, though it has been largely blocked by the courts. The legislation also seeks to repeal targeted regulations on facilities that provide abortion services, repeal laws that have allowed husbands to block their wives from obtaining abortions, and require all private health insurance companies in the state to provide coverage for abortions. The Reproductive Health Act builds on a law Illinois lawmakers passed two years ago requiring Medicaid and state group health insurance plans to cover abortion, Connell said.
The legislation would repeal the state’s ban on so-called partial-birth abortion, which is unenforceable. Anti-choice activists use “partial birth abortion,” an unscientific term, to describe an uncommon type of dilation and evacuation abortion (D and E) known as an “intact D and E.”
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The second bill, SB 1594, which was introduced in Illinois’ state senate last week, would repeal the 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion Act, which requires minors to notify a guardian before receiving abortion care or otherwise appear before a judge and receive a judicial bypass. The law was blocked by the courts from 1995 to 2013, but has been enforced in Illinois for the past five years after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld it.
Although the measure is smaller in scope than the Reproductive Health Act, Higgins said repealing the Parental Notice of Abortion Act is crucial to eliminating barriers to health care for minors.
Andrea González-Ramírez at Refinery29:
As President Donald Trump and anti-choice state legislatures across the country wage a war against abortion rights, Illinois lawmakers are taking steps to protect a woman's right to choose.This week, legislators are introducing companion bills to guarantee access by repealing several decades-old measures, including a 44-year-old dormant law that criminalizes providers who perform abortions and a 1995 restriction that requires minors to appear before a judge to seek approval for the procedure if they don't have a guardian.
Tina Sfondeles at Chicago Sun-Times:
One bill would end the requirement that minors without parental consent go before a judge to gain healthcare approval for an abortion. Another would repeal a provision — which is already blocked by the courts — that provides for criminal penalties for doctors providing abortion care to patients.
Backed by the American Civil Liberties of Illinois and Planned Parenthood of Illinois, the two measures are being introduced because abortion rights advocates want them “off the books.” And the repeals were mentioned in a report by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Equality, Equity and Opportunities transition team, which recommended “the new administration should take action to keep abortion safe, legal and accessible in Illinois.”
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The Reproductive Health Act would repeal the state’s abortion law adopted in 1975, and replace it with language that treats abortion as health care. Many of the provisions within that law had been enjoined by the courts, including criminal penalties for doctors who offered abortion care. The new law would also repeal the Partial Birth Abortion ban — which imposed restrictions on doctors who were performing later-term abortions on women who were 20 weeks pregnant or later. The ACLU, says about 90 percent of all abortions are performed within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy.
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The second piece of legislation would repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995. While it had been blocked by the courts for years, it has been enforced since 2013. Connell argued pregnant minors are already under duress, and forcing them to go to court to get healthcare approval for an abortion causes more stress.
“It has served no purpose except to burden the court and cause a lot of anxiety for minors who at the end of the day are found competent to make their own decisions and have an abortion,” Connell said.
It’s time to beat back the anti-choice lie machine who’ll stop at nothing to see these bills fail and lie about the details of these bills!