Democrat Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law requiring public universities to provide abortion pills to students.
The law, HB3709, requires public universities in the state to have access to contraception and medication abortion on campus beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. The law mandates that state colleges and universities offer consultation appointments with health care professionals who can provide and dispense contraception and abortion pills to students. The law also requires schools with on-campus pharmacies to dispense contraception and abortion pills.
“Six years ago, I made a promise to the women of this state: As governor, I will ensure that your medical decisions will be your own. And we elected a General Assembly that has helped champion that endeavor. Today is another step forward in fulfilling that promise,” Pritzker said in a statement. “I’m proud to be taking these steps, but I will not rest on this. Because we know that anti-choice extremists won’t. We will continue to activate and protest and march and deliver until every woman in this state gets the health care she deserves.”
Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins reacted to the new law and said Pritzker “has shamelessly sold out Illinois students to the abortion industry.”
“This isn’t about healthcare. It’s about political payoffs to Planned Parenthood and abortion industry interests, sacrificing young women’s safety for an extremist agenda. Students shouldn’t have to pay for pills that kill,” Hawkins said.
In a medication abortion, the drug mifepristone blocks the action of progesterone, which the mother’s body produces to nourish the pregnancy. When progesterone is blocked, the lining of the mother’s uterus deteriorates, and blood and nourishment are cut off to the developing baby, who then dies inside the mother’s womb. The drug misoprostol then causes contractions and bleeding to expel the baby from the mother’s uterus.
In 2023, medication abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions within the formal U.S. healthcare system — meaning an estimated 642,700 unborn babies died in medication abortions, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The percentage was up from an estimated 53 percent in 2020 and 39 percent in 2017. The report did not account for abortion pills obtained through underground national and international networks, including those that send pills to women in states with abortion restrictions.
Pritzker additionally signed a bill, HB3637, that bolsters a state law shielding abortionists who send abortions pills into red states with laws protecting the unborn.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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