Speaker Welch Celebrates Passage of Sixth Consecutive Balanced Budget

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – New protections passed by Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and the Illinois House will ensure hospitals continue to provide lifesaving reproductive healthcare even as another anti-choice assault on federal rights looms.

“We know what the goals are of this extremist Supreme Court,” said Speaker Welch. “We’ve built a firewall around Illinois protecting reproductive and lifesaving care and this legislation continues that commitment. In Illinois, we trust doctors and patients. In Illinois, we believe that accessing lifesaving care should remain constitutionally protected. I’m proud we’re keeping Illinois on the right side of history.”

“In Illinois, we believe that every woman deserves the right to safe, compassionate care. No one should be denied the care that could protect them from severe injury or death, which is why it is so important we safeguard the legal protections women in Illinois have long taken for granted,” said Rep. Dagmara Avelar, D-Bolingbrook, the bill’s chief sponsor. “Unfortunately, we are being forced to take action as the recent actions taken by the extremist anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court has put the lives and wellbeing of millions of women at risk. As an Illinoisian and as a woman, I will not back down until we honor the humanity of every patient. Providing medically necessary services, like life-saving abortions, is a baseline commitment to safeguarding the well-being and inalienable rights of women across the state.”

House Bill 681 protects Illinois patients from another likely Supreme Court rollback of reproductive rights by ensuring Illinois hospitals must provide any medically necessary services—including abortion services—to stabilize a patient at risk of severe injury or death.

While this is currently federal law, the Supreme Court’s anti-choice majority is expected to rule as early as this June in Moyle v. Idaho, which asks if Idaho’s total abortion ban is exempted by the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Idaho has presented the Court with an argument that, if accepted, would dismantle critical patient protections in cases involving severe pregnancy complications. Should the Supreme Court again strike down federal protections for patient health, House Bill 681 would ensure these protections remain in place in Illinois and would impose civil penalties on hospitals that refuse to provide lifesaving abortion procedures.