The Illinois Senate voted 34-20 last Friday to pass a bill that is even more extreme than New York’s infanticide law. The “Reproductive Health Act” repeals the state’s ban on partial-birth abortion, allowing abortions through nine months, and requires insurance companies to provide coverage
Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker, who has campaigned to make Illinois the most progressive state in the country for abortion, hugged and congratulated supporters of the bill on the Senate floor after the vote. Pritzker has vowed to sign it into law.
SB 25 strips all rights from unborn children, changes the definition of viability, and legalizes abortions through all nine months of pregnancy, up to the moment of birth, for any reason. The bill eliminates the Abortion Performance Refusal Act so that medical professionals will be forced to recommend, perform or assist in abortion procedures. This legislation also compels insurance plans to provide “coverage for abortion care,” and all licensing requirements for abortion facilities would be removed.
SB 25 repeals the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and “removes any penalty for performing late-term abortions, allows nurses to perform medication abortions, and eliminates licensing and health and safety inspections of abortion clinics.”
It also eliminates waiting periods and spousal and parental consent. Minors would be able to obtain abortions without parental notice and parents would be forced to pay for it, even if they objected and did not consent to the abortion.
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Kelly Cassidy, said, “This is treating abortion care like any other health care.”
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “These are horrific days when Illinois lawmakers celebrate eliminating all protections for unborn children, allowing infanticide, removing conscience protection laws for health care workers, and allowing minors to freely obtain abortions without parental notification. This has nothing to do with healthcare. This a crime against humanity. Yet tragically, Governor Pritzker brags about it.”
