Dupage Policy Journal

Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) said she did all she could to stop House Bill 40 and now must count on Gov. Bruce Rauner to stay true to his word and veto it if it lands on his desk.

“That the governor has promised to veto this bill is great for taxpayers and conservatives,” Ives added. “I don’t imagine this will ever become law as long as the governor is in office.”

HB40 was introduced by Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), ostensibly as a preventative measure to keep abortion legal in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

"After repeated threats from the White House and President Trump's remarks to strip abortion rights away from women, this legislation was necessary to safeguard a woman's right to make decisions that affect her personal health in Illinois," she said.

But Ives and several other conservatives have voiced strong opposition to the bill, which would allow Medicaid recipients and state employees to use taxpayer money for elective abortion services.

Ives said the measure would also remove language stipulating that an unborn child is legally considered a human being.

“This bill reverses law that has been in place for decades, and we believe it will cost $60 million to fund at a time when the state is broke,” Ives told the DuPage Policy Journal. “It’s a bad bill at a bad time.”

Despite Ives' impassioned opposition, the bill passed the House recently and now is under consideration in the Senate.

“I’m not surprised that it passed because bills like this don’t usually come up for a vote unless the other side knows they have the vote,” she said. “But I have been shocked at how callous the other side has been in disregarding other people’s opinion about having to pay for these kinds of elected services.”

A series of recent public opinion polls show most Americans are opposed to the idea of publicly funded abortions, with a Marist Institute survey concluding that 61 percent of all respondents stand in opposition, including 40 percent of those who identified as pro-choice.

Only 15 states now fund elective abortions for Medicaid participants, with more than two-thirds of those states acting on the orders of the court as opposed to following legislative action.