The Illinois House approved Tuesday a bill creating a “fundamental right” to abortion, clearing the way for late-term procedures in what supporters described as a rebuke to red-state legislatures limiting access.
The Reproductive Health Act passed on a vote of 56-40-4, with six Democrats voting against it and four voting present, after an emotional floor debate that saw the opposition led by Republican Rep. Avery Bourne, who is pregnant.
She called the bill a “massive expansion that will impact viable babies, and that is wrong,” while Democratic Rep. Kelly Cassidy, who led the floor fight in favor, described it as a necessary response to red-state legislatures that have passed bills restricting abortion access.
“To our neighbors in Illinois who hear the news around the country and worry that this war on women is coming to Illinois, I say, not on my watch,” said Ms. Cassidy in the Chicago Sun-Times. “To the people in Missouri and Alabama and Georgia and Kentucky and Mississippi and Ohio, I say, not on my watch.”
The bill repeals the Illinois Abortion Act of 1975 and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act; requires insurance coverage for procedures, and allows abortions at any point during pregnancy to protect “the health of the patient.”
Senate Bill 25 now goes for a vote to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it is expected to be approved, before heading to the governor’s desk.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker left no doubt as to his position, saying that he looked forward to “continuing my work as an ally by signing the Reproductive Healthcare Act into law.”
“With reproductive healthcare under attack across the country, we must do everything in our power to protect women’s rights in Illinois,” said Mr. Pritzker in a statement.
BREAKING: The new bill would remove restrictions on both abortions later in pregnancy and criminal penalties for physicians that perform them https://t.co/QqK4P8F3UQ
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) May 28, 2019
The State House just passed SB25 with a 64-50 vote! The Reproductive Health Act protects the right to safe and legal abortion, removes outdated and dangerous restrictions, and will ensure abortion is treated like any other form of healthcare. To the Senate it goes! #PassTheRHA pic.twitter.com/fTfKppnAi8
— NARAL Pro-Choice Illinois (@NARALIllinois) May 28, 2019
BREAKING: Radical expansion of late term abortions has passed the IL House. Read Chairman Schneider’s response here #twill >>> pic.twitter.com/lkFo3mCvDm
— IL Republican Party (@ILGOP) May 28, 2019
Foes of the measure, including the Illinois Republican Party and Illinois Right to Life Action, said that the “health of the patient” language essentially removes restrictions on abortion until birth.
“The RHA states that the ’health of the patient’ is for situations ’including, but not limited to, physical, emotional, psychological, and familial health and age,’” said the Illinois Republican Party in a statement. “This provision touted as late term abortion restrictions is just a paragraph explaining in plain language how there are no actual restrictions.”
Efforts to lift abortion restrictions in Illinois appeared to be going nowhere this year after the uproar over late-term abortion bills in New York and Virginia, but Democrats were galvanized this month by the recent spate of red-state legislation restricting abortion.
Eight states have approved fetal-heartbeat bills and other measures aimed at narrowing the window on abortion access. Supporters say they expect all such state laws to be stayed by courts, the first step in a legal strategy aimed at challenging the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Several blue states, including New York and Vermont, have passed bills to “codify Roe” with legislation to enshrine the decision into state law, but Republicans said SB 25 goes further than the New York law by declaring that the fetus “does not have independent rights.”
“That radical belief exceeds the standards set in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” said the Illinois GOP. “Those two landmark cases recognized a legitimate state interest in protecting fetal rights after viability.”
The Illinois measure also requires insurance coverage for abortion procedures; loosens regulations on abortion facilities, and puts parental notification at risk.
“Creating a ’fundamental right’ to abortion, SB 25 also threatens the current Parental Notice of Abortion Act, requiring the parents of a minor girl to be notified forty-eight hours prior to her having an abortion,” said Illinois Right to Life Action in a statement.
Former Illinois state Rep. Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel of the pro-life Thomas More Society, said the bill was “the most radically pro-abortion measure of its kind and would make Illinois an abortion destination for the country.”
Colleen Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois, cheered the bill’s passage, saying that “House members made clear that Roe v. Wade and its protections for reproductive freedom—is under threat today as never before – with more than 20 cases in the federal court pipeline aimed at crippling or reversing Roe.”
“The RHA responds to this threat by recognizing reproductive health care as a fundamental right, and by removing outdated, long-blocked statutes that make many forms of abortion care and contraceptives a crime,” she said in a statement.
As the 2019 state legislative sessions wind down, a bill to expand abortion access is expected to become law in Nevada. Both houses have passed Senate Bill 179, but the Senate must still schedule a final voice vote.
A no-limits bill in Vermont reached the governor’s desk earlier this month, and Gov. Phil Scott has said that he will not veto the measure, which means it will become law with or without his signature.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.