(LifeSiteNews) – Illinois Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed two new laws Friday to further aid the abortion industry, one spreading abortion pills on college campuses and another solidifying the state as a “safe haven” from pro-life laws.
HB3709 makes abortion and contraception pills available on Illinois college campuses and removes “approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration” from the definition of “emergency contraception.” HB3637 shields abortion providers from out-of-state prosecutions for helping facilitate abortions in pro-life states.
“At the end of that movie (2019’s Avengers: Endgame), all the women of the Avengers come together for the final battle. That’s how I feel about the women here today, and the women in the General Assembly who have led this fight,” Pritzker said at a signing event, The Center Square reported. “Our job right now is to protect Illinois and its residents from the onslaught coming from Washington and neighboring states, and to provide a safe haven for women across the country seeking to have their rights protected.”
Notably, not every Democrat in the legislature was on board. “These bills work to promote and celebrate abortion rather than work to build up the services and support to help empower women through their pregnancy and even postpartum,” state Rep. Reagan Deering said. “The Democrats need to worry less about Trump-proofing and more about serving those we were elected to represent.”
“They don’t care about the lives of mothers, they just care about pushing their radical policies,” Deering added. “I’m personally concerned that Illinois is disregarding FDA guidance on prescription drugs, and now women will have to access chemical abortion pills without proper medical oversight.”
“This bill places the health and safety of young women at risk and turns institutions of higher learning into abortion facilities,” Illinois Right to Life said of HB3709, according to WCIA.
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the unregulated, no-oversight distribution of contraceptive and abortion pills across state lines has become arguably the abortion lobby’s most effective tactic for preserving abortion “access.”
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone “accounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.”
This is despite the fact that a 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.” A recent Charlotte Lozier Institute study also found that most emergency room visits stemming from abortion pill complications are misattributed to miscarriages, further making the pills appear safer than they really are.
“A November 2021 study by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” Catholic University of America research associate Michael New wrote. “They analyzed state Medicaid data of over 400,000 abortions from 17 states that fund elective abortions through their Medicaid programs. They found that the rate of abortion-pill-related emergency-room visits increased over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015. The rate of emergency-room visits for surgical abortions also increased during the same time period, but by a much smaller margin.’”
Yet Illinois under Pritzker has been aggressive in shoring up abortion-on-demand. In June, he signed legislation to ensure abortion pills remain legal in the state even if the FDA withdraws approval, and last year he celebrated “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day” with a “thank you” to “doctors, nurses, clinic staff and volunteers” involved in abortions for their “compassion” despite Illinois abortionists’ record of putting women in emergency rooms via botched procedures.
