The government was passed on Saturday. College women’s pro-life leaders describe it as “insulting and infantilizing.”
After the state senate passed House Bill 3709 on Saturday, Illinois may soon be the first state to mandate that public institutions perform abortions on school.
If public higher education institutions have a student wellness center, the bill mandates that those institutions offer access to prevention and treatment for pregnancies starting in the 2025-2026 class time.
According to the proposed law, the school health center may offer students access to contraception and contraception pills if it has a pharmacy on campus. Organizations that do not have a store on campus will be required to give students “access to health care professionals” who may offer contraception and abortion pills either on or off college or via telehealth.
The bill’s chief sponsor is Democratic Sen. Celina Villanueva ( pictured ). The policy was “directly inspired by student activists,” according to her spokesman Fatima Valerio, and it is about “honoring” their labor with “real, widespread change,” according to Fatima Valerio.
Students have told me how challenging it is to get fundamental reproductive health care while spinning school, work, and financial stress, I’ve heard. Many people are forced to postpone care, according to the director, and some don’t have transport.
When asked about university healthcare staff who might object to providing abortions, Valerio responded that while people institutions can provide them, one’s “personal beliefs” could prevent someone from “delaying or denying access to care.”
In an email on Thursday, Valerio stated,” Illinois has always stood up for reproductive rights, and we’re not backing over.”
The governor will now have the act before him. J. Democratic supporter B. Pritzker.
The act is opposed by the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago. It was referred to as particularly “objectionable” by Spokesperson Matt Yonke in an email to The Fix next week.
According to Yonke, the invoice is “insulting and infantilizing” school girls, Yonke said, adding that some people from different states visit Illinois for free, taxpayer-funded pregnancies because they are so readily available.
He further questioned whether the president’s partners” think so little of these learners” that they believe those services may be” spoonfed to them” on school.
Beyond that, he claimed, the act appears to be focusing on “propping up” Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest pregnancy company. Yonke told The Fix that Illinois’s proposed reforms are “outrageous” and may require schools to spend money to” shore up their lower line.”
When asked about conscientious objections to abortions by healthcare staff, Yonke said it wouldn’t surprise him if someone who was “bullied into compliance” files a lawsuit because Illinois has shown” no mercy” on such matters in the past.
Final, he told The Fix,” It’s unclear whether this bill actually accomplishes anything other than creating a bureaucratic nightmare for schools.” ” One of the options for providing abortion and contraception to students under this bill is via telehealth. Students could already talk to a doctor online from their dorm rooms, which creates a huge fanfare.
Last week, The Fix twice emailed the University of Illinois ‘ media relations office for clarification on the bill’s financial and First Amendment implications. The University of Illinois did not respond. The University of Illinois System, the state’s largest higher education institution, would be the one most negatively impacted by the proposed legislation.
The proposed legislation resembles California’s 2019 law that mandates that student health centers at public higher education institutions provide and pay for medication abortions.
California became the first state to mandate that colleges and universities, followed by Massachusetts and New York, to mandate abortions on campus.
According to California’s Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, student health centers at each California State University campus spent a total of at least$ 2, 595, 570 facilitating 276 abortions in the fiscal year 2023-2024.
Because they were passed in states where abortion is already common, Yonke said he doubts whether such laws are a national trend. Instead, he suggested that they are instances of legislators trying to demonstrate their “pro-choice bona fides” by passing laws that “do nothing but virtue signal” to the public.
MORE: Students in pro-life states can purchase “reproductive care kits” from Colorado State University.
AN IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A protester, Julian Leshay/Shutterstock, holds a sign promoting abortion.
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