Progress Illinois

There aren't many lawmakers in Washington who have worked as hard as Rep. Jan Schakowsky to protect the reproductive rights of women. So it was with a lot of pain that the Northside Democrat ultimately swallowed a last-minute amendment to the historic health care reform bill limiting elective abortion coverage from both private and public insurers on the health insurance exchanges.

Women's groups across the nation, including Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women, said yesterday they would oppose any final health package that includes the abortion ban. Schakowsky is ready to join them. Greg Sargent has the scoop:

"If left as is the health care reform bill would be the largest repeal of anti-choice laws in nearly four decades,” Schakowsky said in a statement emailed my way. “I will continue to work with the Senate and the Conference Committee to make the bill acceptable, but cannot and will not support health care reform that blatantly discriminates against women."

Schakowsky is clearly mad about how the process evolved. Yesterday, on WTTW's Chicago Tonight, she explained her frustration with pro-lifers in Congress who moved the goal posts at the last minute. Watch an excerpt (in which she also pushes back against the GOP's efforts to restrict access to undocumented workers):

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Pro-life lawmakers have been trying very hard as of late to block basic reproductive rights for women. As we noted earlier, 19 House members sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding that language in the House health care reform package prevent any federal funds from being used for abortions. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) took aim at a Health and Human Services appropriations bill last week, filing an amendment to effectively strip Planned Parenthood -- the nation's largest abortion provider -- of its Title X funding.

Thankfully, it was soundly defeated on Friday. (Illinois Republicans Judy Biggert and Mark Kirk crossed party lines to vote against (PDF) the provision, while Democratic Reps. Dan Lipinski and Jerry Costello supported it.)  But before the crucial vote, Rep. Mike Quigley spoke out strongly on the House floor against the measure, pointing out that, contrary to the suggestion from Pence and others, Planned Parenthood and other providers are already legally prohibited from using the funds for abortion services. Instead, the organization uses the taxpayer dollars it receives for primary care, including breast exams, family planning, and screening for high blood pressure, cancer, STDs, and HIV. Watch it:

At a public forum in the suburb of Summit last month, Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski went on the record in support of comprehensive health care reform, including a public option to compete against private insurance companies. Given that House Blue Dogs could make-or-break the Obama administration's reform efforts, it was encouraging to hear an unequivocal endorsement of Obama's broad approach from one of the area's more conservative Democrats.

But Lipinksi's vote isn't yet secured. FireDogLake tracked down Lipinski on Capitol Hill and asked whether he would back a bill that funds abortion. Here's his answer:

LIPINSKI: I strongly oppose any bill that's going to have public funding for abortion. The American people certainly don't want that.

It's worth noting that none of the health reform bills in Congress currently threaten the Hyde Amendment, which forbids Medicaid from using any federal money to pay for an abortion procedure. President Obama himself affirmed this fact in an interview with Katie Couric, saying that "we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care."

But let's be clear: the American people already fund abortion services.

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For those interested, a rally is scheduled for the late Dr. George Tiller at Chicago's Thompson Center at 4 p.m. this afternoon. (If you know of any other events elsewhere in the state, please leave the details in the comments section.)  One of the last doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions, Tiller was shot and killed in Wichita, KS over the weekend while standing in the foyer of his church.  The American Prospect's Ann Friedman wrote yesterday that the murder of this abortion rights activist represents the "culmination of an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services."  Be sure to read Gloria Feldt's response on Salon as well.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is currently exploring a bid for U.S. Senate, released the following statement yesterday:

“I am saddened by the news that Dr. George Tiller was murdered this morning while attending church services.  Regardless of anyone’s views of this difficult subject, we can all agree that violence should never be the solution to differences over policy. 

“For the past 30 years, dozens of clinics have been bombed, hundreds more set on fire and thousands of medical professionals and patients harassed.  A woman’s right to choose must not only be protected by the law, but also protected from those who violently and tragically break those laws.”

This week a high-profile conservative voice offered a reminder that the fight over granting Illinois women access to safe and affordable reproductive health care is far from over. In a Sun-Times op-ed, Cardinal Francis George targeted legislation that affirms women’s legal right to contraception, abortion, and pre-natal care. His inflammatory piece, which ran Wednesday, falsely claimed that the “enemies of human life and religious freedom” here in Illinois are out to “remove the right to conscientious objection to abortion.”

Here’s what’s the Reproductive Health and Access Act (HB2357) would actually do:

The [bill] bars the government from interfering with anyone’s ability to use birth control, carry a pregnancy to term or terminate a pregnancy.

The bill requires all Illinois public schools to teach medically accurate, age appropriate, comprehensive sex education. Parents would be allowed to remove their children from classes if they don’t want them to participate.

The bill makes sure that government-funded health care programs, like Medicaid, cover basic reproductive health care services like family planning, pre-natal care, and pap tests as they do for other health care services.

As Jesse Greenberg noted, the legislation includes no language that would force an objecting, individual physician to perform an abortion or provide contraception -- contrary to conservatives’ misleading claims.

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Now that former President George W. Bush has retired to his new home in Dallas, Congress and the Obama administration will start taking steps to undo some of the former president’s more dangerous policies. Ensuring the government adequately protects reproductive rights should be high on the list.

Speaking at a recent event sponsored by the American Association of University Women, Rep. Jan Schakowsky -- recently named co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues -- outlined some of the caucus’ top priorities. Included was a promise to strike down the Global Gag Rule, which Bush re-imposed on his first day in office eight long years ago. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the U.S. endangers thousands of women worldwide every day that it restricts foreign, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive USAID family planning funds from using their own resources to provide legal abortion services or accurate medical counseling. It’s a practice that must end.

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Over three years ago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich put pharmacists on notice by requiring that they make the morning-after pill (also known as "Plan B") available to patients regardless of their religious or political beliefs. Later that year, two pro-life pharmacists mounted a legal challenge to this "administrative rule," arguing that it violated their religious beliefs.  The case has been working its way through the judicial system ever since.

First, a circuit court ruled in 2005 that the plaintiffs' “right of conscience” argument had no legal merit. In 2007, an appellate court upheld that ruling.  The two pharmacists then took their case to the Illinois Supreme Court.  But instead of rendering a decision today, the high court sent the the plaintiffs back to square one, as the Tribune reported:

The Supreme Court decided the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence of potential harm to warrant having their case heard in court. Also, it noted, the administrative rule was amended in the settlement of a separate lawsuit last year, providing grounds for a reconsideration of the case.

Now the matter will return to the Sangamon County Circuit Court. While pro-lifers attempted to spin the decision as "supporting" the plaintiffs, I spoke to Illinois Planned Parenthood policy director Pam Sutherland this afternoon and she was confident the rule would ultimately be upheld.  Below is a portion of our conversation:

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Regardless of what President Bush says, abstinence-only sex education has been widely discredited. Last April, a longitudinal study of 2,000 children commissioned by Congress found that preaching abstinence does not keep teenagers from having sex nor does it increase the likelihood that they will use contraception if they do. The results essentially gutted the fundamental premise behind the abstinence-only movement.

Here in Illinois, however, it seems Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Department of Human Services (DHS) have ignored the overwhelming evidence to this effect. According to the Sexuality and Information Education Council’s (SIECUS) William Smith, the state accepted over $1.8 million in abstinence-until-marriage funds this past fiscal year through a federal funding stream known as Title V. And the money went to some undeserving causes.

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Reporting on the 6th Congressional District race today, NBC 5's Mary Ann Ahern noted Democratic challenger Jill Morgenthaler's criticism of a comment made by GOP Rep. Peter Roskam at a recent editorial meeting.  Ahern reported that Roskam "would not talk about that abortion statement, refusing to clarify it or even discuss it today":

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GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, uncorked:

Morgenthaler, who vaulted over Roselle businessman Stan Jagla in the Democratic primary election with 77 percent of the vote, calls Roskam an "ideologue" because, for example, he opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest. Citing the late Congressman Henry Hyde, who represented the 6th District for 16 terms until 2006, Roskam said people cannot be categorized by the way in which they were conceived and asked in the Pioneer Press interview why women can have abortions if rapists cannot be executed.

The late Henry Hyde would be awfully proud.

(H/T Capitol Fax)