Illinois is poised to fulfill one of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s campaign promises and become the most permissive state in the nation for abortion rights. And I’m thrilled.
House Bill 2495 “provides that every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right.”
A companion bill, Senate Bill 1594, repeals the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 that requires minors to inform a parent or legal guardian or get a waiver from a judge before having an abortion.
Among the effects of these twin proposals, introduced by Democratic lawmakers in mid-February, would be the lifting of restrictions on late-term abortions and the removal of a leftover statutory provision calling for criminal penalties against abortion doctors and allowing localities to effectively ban abortion clinics by imposing medically unnecessary requirements on them. The House bill additionally requires private insurance plans to cover abortion services.
Opponents have branded the effort “extreme.”
Well, if it’s extreme to allow women to make the intensely personal decision about whether or not to remain pregnant free from state interference, then it’s extreme.
If it’s extreme to regulate abortion in the same manner as we regulate many other medical procedures and services, then it’s extreme.
If it’s extreme to allow minors to make their own decisions about involving their parents or guardians before obtaining abortions, then it’s extreme.
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It would enshrine access to abortion — abortion rights — as a positive good in Illinois law. It would enshrine female bodily autonomy as a positive good. It would enshrine the idea that the best person to solve the moral dilemmas associated with unwanted or seriously compromised pregnancies is the pregnant woman herself.
I’m thrilled about this legislation because I believe in reproductive choice. I believe it’s none of my business what a woman decides to do after she becomes pregnant. I believe that the very suggestion that women are casually obtaining late-term abortions because — whoops! — they just got around to making the appointment or have decided they really want to fit into that bridesmaid’s dress is offensively misleading and belies the wrenching, usually tragic circumstances.
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This cynical attempt to impede a woman’s right to choose is of a piece with efforts by numerous state legislatures to erect such barriers to abortion as stricter gestational thresholds, longer waiting periods and requirements that clinic doctors have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The result has been to place a particularly heavy burden on low-income women seeking abortions.
I have no doubt that many states will outlaw abortion altogether if our increasingly conservative judiciary ends up gutting or reversing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that guaranteed abortion rights in most cases, and returns the issue to the states.
I’m thrilled that if these bills pass in Springfield — a decent bet given the overwhelmingly Democratic makeup of the General Assembly and Pritzker’s promise — Illinois will be very unlikely to join them.
Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune on why Illinois needs to pass abortion access-protecting Reproductive Health Act (03.07.2019).
Eric Zorn for the Chicago Tribune accurately sums up why Illinois needs to pass the Reproductive Health Act (#HB2495) ASAP. It's because that Roe v. Wade could get neutered or struck down in full by SCOTUS in the next few years, allowing states such as Missouri and Tennessee to pass laws that assault bodily autonomy, reproductive health, and erode abortion access. Conversely, it allows states like New York and Illinois to pass laws protecting access to abortion should that option be chosen and the issue to be decided between the doctor and the patient in the event that Roe gets overturned or neutered.
The domestic gag rule that was imposed recently by the anti-women Trump Misadministration is a massive assault on reproductive freedom, family planning, and Planned Parenthood.
If you live in Illinois, I urge you to contact your legislators to urge them to vote YES on HB2495 and SB1594!
