By Samantha Kamman, Contributor
With a new, radical pro-abortion agenda making itself known in our legislative acts, Illinois House Bill 2495 promises to be one of the worst to date. The bill asserts that “A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this State.” The bill also guarantees that “every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to continue the pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right.” Not only does this radical new bill strip the unborn of any form of protection, and permit the practice of ‘infanticide’ following a botched abortion, but it would also remove protections for pro-life healthcare workers, among other dangerous proposals.
Unrestricted access to abortion does not protect a woman’s health. Instead, it endangers her and the life of her baby. Case in point, House Bill 2495 would undermine parental notification laws. These laws declared that a physician could not perform an abortion procedure on a girl under the age of eighteen without the girl’s parent or guardian receiving a notice 48 hours prior to the abortion. Obviously these laws sought to protect girls that had not fully developed a cerebral cortex yet, something that will not fully develop till a child’s 20s and will help them with mature decision-making.
But, House Bill 2495’s companion bill, House Bill 2467, would do away with these restrictions, not only granting underage girls unlimited access to abortion, but it would also have the Department of Children and Family Services use public funds to pay for abortions.
The scope of the bill has an even more troubling reach than allowing minors to undergo such a procedure. The bill would not only require health insurance policies to provide coverage for abortions, with no exemptions for churches or religious organizations, but it would allow non-physicians to perform surgical and medical abortions. The broad wording of the bill would even enable it to allow self-abortions.
The danger of self-abortions must be noted here. An organization by the name of Women on Web has been illegally shipping abortion pills to women worldwide for years. With Illinois’ new bill, such a thing wouldn’t be regulated, but encouraged. The group boasts a 78% follow up rate, and of the thousands of women this group represented, 6.8% of these women required follow up surgical abortion procedures after the abortion pill failed. Given the fact that half of the U.S. states don’t require reporting on complications from any type of abortion, this statistic may be higher.
Something that is known is that the experience of a self-abortion is far from pleasant. One woman stated her experience “was the experience of having a baby. Contractions for 10 hours, sweating, screaming, being by myself. It was emotionally scarring and physically horrible.” There are some women who have even bled for months after taking an abortion pill. Since the woman performed the abortion herself, there is no physician to examine her, and the woman risks experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. Self-abortions can put a woman into a life-threatening situation, and the fact that the complications that occur from them will increase if House Bill 2495 is able to pass must be noted.
To combat this radical pro-abortion bill, the Illinois Right to Life is encouraging individuals to fill out witness slips to make their voices heard to lawmakers. Abortion has disempowered women not only by terminating little girls in the womb, but by compelling women into believing abortion is their only option. The procedure not only destroys the life of women in the womb, but it increases the mother’s chances of developing post-abortion syndrome. If we are to truly stand for women and build a community that is thriving with an appreciation for life, then we must make our voices heard and oppose radical bills like House Bill 2495.
