The RHA cleared the state Senate Friday night by a vote of 34-20 with three abstentions. The implications are awful not just for Illinois, but also surrounding states.
“[State Rep. Kelly] Cassidy, who is part of a Democratic majority in the legislative body, supports the bill not just to preserve abortion access for the people of Illinois, she said, but also for the people from neighboring states — where restrictions are harsher — who go to Illinois for abortions,” according to ABC News Radio.
“In 2017, more than 5,500 women came to Illinois to get abortions, the Chicago Tribune reported.”
Following last Tuesday’s 65-40 vote in the House, Gov. Pritzker issued a statement saying
“Illinois is making history, because our state will now be the most progressive in the nation for reproductive healthcare. In Illinois, we trust women to make the most personal and fundamental decisions of their lives — and now, that will be the law of the land, even as it’s under threat in other states.”
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider captured just how far Illinois Democrats have come in a statement following the House vote:
“In just a few short years, the Democrat party in Illinois went from advocating ‘safe, legal and rare’ to abortion on-demand, at any time, for any reason, and funded by taxpayers. This is not the typical pro-life vs. pro-choice debate I have been accustomed to in my lifetime. The RHA goes much further. It’s an extreme bill that functionally eliminates any and all restrictions for the termination of a life up until the moment of birth. That is unconscionable and I urge the Senate and the Governor to reject this bill.”
The Thomas More Society analyzed the bill and concluded it would comprise “the most radical piece of abortion legislation that has ever been introduced in Illinois, and…the most radical proposed in any state to date,” said Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel for the Thomas More Society, and former Illinois House Minority Floor Leader.
“The barbaric procedures promoted by this legislation are nothing short of infanticide. These bills go well beyond the recent New York law and would turn Illinois into a third-trimester abortion destination and an underage abortion haven. Governor J.B. Pritzker promised that his Illinois Democrats would turn the state into the most ‘progressive’ in the country on abortion, and these bills deliver on that violent promise: Pritzker and his Democratic supermajorities would convert the ‘Land of Lincoln’ into the ‘Abortion Capital of America.’”
Under the category “you can’t make this stuff up,” Pritzker tweeted
Who’d like to wager that the more the number of women who came to Illinois to get abortions in 2017 – more than 5,500–will escalate? Click here for more.
