Moments ago, the Illinois House passed the Reproductive Health Act (House Amendment 1 to SB 25) stripping away restrictions for late term abortions. Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider released the following response:
“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.”
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider
Advocates have pushed the legislation under the dishonest guise of cleaning up statute language in light of court injunctions since the Illinois Abortion Act of 1975 was written. Chairman Schneider commented on the attempted gaslighting of the public, saying, “The abortion activists pushing this insidious bill are trying to say it’s about Trump, about the bill passed in Alabama, or simply pretending the bill is something it’s not. It’s a late term abortion bill. Period.”
Background – Late Term “Restrictions”, Other State Laws & Public Opinion
According to the bill, “restrictions” for late term abortions are for cases involving the “health of the patient” which is explicitly defined as virtually anything. The RHA states that the “health of the patient” is for situations “including, but not limited to, physical, emotional, psychological, and familial health and age.” This provision touted as late term abortion restrictions is just a paragraph explaining in plain language how there are no actual restrictions.
Before the latest spate of pro-life bills were passed in Georgia, Alabama, and others, there were equally controversial bills expanding abortion rights passed or introduced in states like New York and Virginia. The context of the Illinois Reproductive Health Act is that it goes even further than places like New York. New York and others preserved statute language restricting abortions past the point of viability to those threatening the life and health of the mother. The Illinois RHA drops this pretense of late term abortion restriction as well as codifying into law the dehumanizing belief that a fetus – whether at one week or eight months gestation – “does not have independent rights under the laws of this State.” That radical belief exceeds the standards set in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Those two landmark cases recognized a legitimate state interest in protecting fetal rights after viability.
It’s not just pro-life activists recognizing the extreme nature of the RHA. The bill squarely meets the definition of “extreme” according to public opinion. According to the latest numbers from Gallup in 2018, the percentage of people nationwide who believe abortion should be legal in the last three months of pregnancy is 13%. Compare that to the 81% of people who say it should be illegal. Any measure that seemingly has a good chance of becoming law and rejects the opinion of 81% of the public on a very hot-button issue is objectively far outside of the mainstream. That’s why the proponents are so aggressive in their misrepresentation of what the RHA actually does.
