SPRINGFIELD, Sick. — Access to abortion is basically locked down in Illinois. But Democrats are looking at ways to better protect the practice and its availability, including to outsiders who could potentially face home country punishment for seeking treatment here.
Bills approved by both chambers of the General Assembly include requiring Illinois insurance companies to cover abortion-inducing drugs, penalizing crisis pregnancy centers if they distribute inaccurate information and requiring colleges to offer lower-cost emergency contraception on campus.
Reaching beyond borders is a high-tech, House-approved measure that requires interstate agreements on plate reading technology to include a promise that the technology will not be used to track people traveling to Illinois for abortions. It has its sights set on laws such as the recent “abortion trade” law that was signed in Idaho.
Lawmakers say they are not circling in an increasingly hostile landscape since the US Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to abortion last year. Instead, they see a necessary reaction to other states' outreach — or, as Rep. Kelly Cassidy, response to Republican attacks on “people they think are not their equal.”
“We said, whatever they do to you, you will be safe here,” said Cassidy, a Democrat from Chicago. “I'm not talking to the politicians who did this, I have nothing to say to them. I'm talking to the people they sacrificed. And I want to do everything in my power to make sure that we can keep them.” as safe as possible.”
Cassidy-sponsored legislation, SB1344, that would require any company selling accident or health insurance in Illinois to provide cover for abortion – drugs that interrupt pregnancy – hormonal therapy or prevention of immunodeficiency viruses.
Another measure, which opposers of abortion vow will result in a lawsuit, would slap a crisis pregnancy center with fraudulent practices — carrying a fine of as much as $50,000 — under the state's consumer fraud law for spreading false information.
The centers, non-profit and often faith-based, offer services such as ultrasounds, client counseling and providing diapers and formula. There are about 100 such centers in Illinois. Nationally, they outnumber abortion clinics, and their influence is growing.
Democratic Representative Glen Ellyn Terra Costa Howard, who sponsored SB1909, has examples of literature from centers presenting “scientifically debunked” information that abortion is linked to breast cancer, for example.
“We regulate how you can buy a car through fraudulent practices or how someone can sign up with a utility agency…,” said Costa Howard. “There is nothing in this bill that restricts the First Amendment. This is not a forced speech issue. You cannot lie and deceive people about health care.”
Ralph Rivera, chair of the Illinois Right to Life legislature, said such information was uncontested, but was based on research that reached different conclusions than those highlighted by abortion rights advocates.
“They say it's cheating if we use our studies, that we can only use theirs,” Rivera said. “That's not deception, that's dissent in research. We're not overstating the risk of abortion in causing cancer or infertility.”
Rivera said if enacted, a federal lawsuit would follow based on constitutional safeguards to speak out and ban unclear laws.
The maternity center has won in court before. A 2016 law requiring them to provide information about where clients can get an abortion was stopped by a federal appeals court and is still pending court arguments. But the US Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that a similar law in California was unconstitutional.
Democratic Representative Barbara Hernandez of Chicago also won approval for a plan to require colleges statewide to provide emergency contraception, often referred to as Plan B, for less at their on-campus vending kiosks. Republicans complained it forced higher education institutions to pay for the state's needs without state money, but Hernandez argued they could set their own discounts and that “it's going to help a lot of people.”
“They may live several miles away from a Walgreens or CVS. They may not own a car, and transportation may not be available to them,” Hernandez says. “That's why it's important to have products where they are in case of an emergency.”
Rep. Ann Williams, another Chicago Democrat, received House approval last week for asking other states to pledge in interstate agreements not to use automated license plate reading technology to ensnare potential abortion patients who left the state.
Photo of bank license plate reader and license plate reader for law enforcement purposes. The plate numbers of the vehicles carrying criminal suspects can be checked against the database to determine where to go or go. A maverick sheriff could use it to track someone heading to Illinois for an abortion, Williams said.
The Williams bill, sponsored in the Senate by Chicago Democratic Senator Sara Feigenholz, won committee approval Wednesday and took to the floor. Senator Celina Villanueva, a Chicago Democrat, is leading other steps through the Senate. They await a transfer to Governor JB Pritzker, a staunch supporter of abortion rights.
“When countries around us take such extreme steps … we need to step back. It's not ideal. That's not what the United States should be about. But that's where we are now …,” Williams said. “Are we making life a little more difficult? Maybe. But it's not us who want to disenfranchise more than half the population.”