Access to abortion is essentially locked down in Illinois. But Democrats are looking for ways to further protect the practice and its availability, including to outsiders who potentially face home-state penalties for seeking treatment here.
Legislation approved by both houses of the General Assembly include requiring Illinois insurers to cover abortion-inducing drugs, penalizing crisis pregnancy centers if they distribute inaccurate information and requiring colleges to offer reduced-price emergency contraception on campus.
Reaching beyond the borders is a high-tech House-approved measure that would require that interstate agreements over license-plate reading technology include a promise they not be used to track people traveling to Illinois for an abortion. It has its sights set on statutes such as the recent “abortion-trafficking” law signed in Idaho.
DANVILLE PASSES ABORTION PILL BAN IN ALLEGED DEFIANCE OF ILLINOIS LAW
Another measure, which abortion opponents promise will result in a lawsuit, would slap crisis pregnancy centers with deceptive practices — carrying a fine of as much as $50,000 — under the state’s consumer fraud law for circulating false information.
The centers, nonprofit and often faith-based, offer services such as ultrasounds, counseling clients and providing diapers and formula. There are about 100 such centers in Illinois. Nationally, they far outnumber abortion clinics, and their influence is growing.
Democratic Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy was a leading proponent of a bill requiring insurers to cover abortion-inducing drugs for the states residents. (Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)
Glen Ellyn Democratic Rep. Terra Costa Howard, who sponsored SB1909, has examples of literature from the centers positing “scientifically debunked” information that abortion is linked to breast cancer, for example.
Rivera said if enacted, a federal lawsuit will follow based on constitutional protections of speech and prohibiting laws that are vague.
The pregnancy centers have won in court before. A 2016 law requiring them to provide information on where clients could get an abortion was halted by a federal appeals court and still awaits trial court argument. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that a similar law in California was unconstitutional.
ILLINOIS GOV. PRITZKER SIGNS SWEEPING ABORTION PROTECTIONS INTO LAW
License plate readers photograph and bank license plates for law enforcement purposes. A plate number from a vehicle carrying a criminal suspect can be checked against the database to determine where it’s been or going. A maverick sheriff could use it to track someone headed to Illinois for an abortion, Williams said.
Williams’ legislation, sponsored in the Senate by Chicago Democratic Sen. Sara Feigenholz, won committee approval Wednesday and was headed to the floor. Sen. Celina Villanueva, a Chicago Democrat, led the other measures through the Senate. They await transfer to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, an ardent supporter of abortion rights.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP