Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a controversial bill into law Wednesday that provides for broad access to abortion and throws out restrictions on the procedure in the third trimester.
The law, the Reproductive Health Act, declares every person in Illinois has a “fundamental right” to abortion, pregnancy care, or sterilization, and that “a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this state.” It takes effect immediately.
“If you believe in standing up for women’s fundamental rights, Illinois is a beacon of hope in the heart of this nation,” Pritzker said before signing the bill into law. “We trust women.”
Illinois lawmakers supporting the bill said that they needed to get into gear to protect against a potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide until fetal viability, which is understood to be roughly 24 weeks into a pregnancy. Illinois lawmakers passed the bill as a response to other states enacting abortion bans, without exceptions for rape and incest, measures intended as a challenge to Roe given the Supreme Court’s more conservative makeup.
Should Roe be overturned, the decision to legalize abortion would fall to states, meaning that Illinois’s expanded access would remain in place while other states, including neighboring Missouri, would ban or restrict the practice. Supporters of abortion rights, such as the Guttmacher Institute, say laws like Illinois’ are necessary to ensure abortion remains legal.
“This is a critical opportunity to envision and codify abortion rights and imagine a future of expanded, accessible, and affordable abortion care without stigma,” Elizabeth Nash, the group’s senior state issues manager, said in a statement.
Pritzer echoed Nash’s comments when he signed the bill, saying it would ensure “women’s rights in Illinois do not hinge on the fate of Roe v. Wade or the whims of an increasingly conservative Supreme Court in Washington.”
But anti-abortion groups have called the new law the “most extreme” in the U.S. Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group influential with the Trump administration, called the bill “radical.”
“Americans of every political persuasion are appalled by these attempts to expand abortion on demand through the moment of birth and even infanticide, and that in turn is driving pro-life momentum around the country,” Jill Stanek, SBA List’s National Campaign chairwoman, said in a statement. “There is no pride or glory in being the most extreme pro-abortion state in the nation.”
The law throws away a requirement that abortions happening after viability need a sign-off from a second doctor, and allows for the procedure if a doctor determines it would protect the “health of the patient.” The law uses the same language in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Doe v. Bolton decision that broadly defines such circumstances to mean “all factors that are relevant to the patient’s health and well-being, including, but not limited to, physical, emotional, psychological, and familial health and age.”
Accordingly, proponents have framed the Reproductive Health Act as a measure that protects existing practices, rather than expanding abortion rights.
“This simply codifies into law in Illinois what already was decided in case law and what already existed as the law of the land in the state,” Pritzker said when reporters asked him about it on Wednesday.
Illinois’s measure also repeals the state’s Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, but the 2003 federal ban on the procedure, and the upholding of the law in a 2007 Supreme Court decision, remains in place. The term “partial-birth abortion” is used politically to refer to a surgical procedure called “intact dilation and extraction,” which is an abortion that keeps the fetus intact while it is removed from the uterus. The procedure, which is also used for miscarriages, is completed by using surgical tools to collapse the skull, which comes out last.
The law would require all health insurers to cover abortions, including those paid for by government programs, and does not make exceptions for churches, religious nonprofits, or anti-abortion advocacy groups. More healthcare workers, including practice nurses and physician assistants, will be allowed to provide abortions.
It also did away with other restrictions that hadn’t been enforced because they were blocked by courts, including a 1975 criminal penalty against doctors.
