Share this @internewscast.com
Illinois elected officials are weighing in after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that established the right to an abortion, with a ruling that marks a seismic shift in abortion law and will usher in new rules limiting or banning access to the procedure in half of the states, in some places immediately.
In Illinois, state law already protects women’s reproductive rights in the event Roe v. Wade were struck down, after Gov. JB Pritzker last year signed legislation establishing abortion as a “fundamental right” for women.
Pritzker plans to call a special session of the Illinois General Assembly in the coming weeks to further protect women’s reproductive rights.
Illinois is expecting to see an influx of women seeking abortions here in the coming weeks and months, as most neighboring states already have or soon will pass laws severely restricting or outright banning abortions.
The decision to undo nearly 50 years of precedent will have sweeping ramifications for tens of millions of women across the country as abortion rights are curtailed, particularly in GOP-led states in the South and Midwest, and lead to a patchwork of laws absent the constitutional protection. Thirteen states have so-called “trigger laws” on the books, in which abortion will swiftly be outlawed in most cases with Roe overturned.
The ruling came in a case involving a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and the court reversed the decision of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked the measure.