Illinois House passes abortion rights bill News
© WikiMedia (Daniel Schwen)
Illinois House passes abortion rights bill

The Illinois House of Representatives voted 64-50 in favor of the Reproductive Health Act (HB2495) on Tuesday.

The bill will move to the Illinois Senate for consideration as an amendment to SB0025.

As drafted, the amendment to SB0025 would repeal some Illinois laws, including the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and require insurance companies to cover abortion procedures. Portions of the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act have been enjoined by the judicial system but have never been officially repealed.

This Act sets forth the fundamental rights of individuals to make autonomous decisions about one’s own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care. This includes the fundamental right of an individual to use or refuse contraception or sterilization, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right; and the fundamental right of an individual who becomes pregnant to continue the pregnancy and give birth to a child, or to have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right. This Act restricts the ability of the State to deny, interfere with, or discriminate against these fundamental rights.

The bill is expected to pass the Senate and be signed Governor JB Pritzker.

HB2495 comes as other states, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio, test the limits of Roe v. Wade’s protection of abortion rights.