These days, it’s surprisingly easy to find reminders that Illinois’ reproductive freedom efforts are urgently needed.

New legislation recently introduced in the Missouri House includes an astonishingly far-reaching provision: if passed, it would make it illegal to assist any Missouri resident to obtain an abortion – inside or outside the borders of the Missouri – and would allow any private citizen to sue to enforce the law. to forbid.

Among other things, it represents a shocking attempt by one state to interfere with the health care provided in another.

The bill combines Texas’ strategy of using citizen lawsuits to circumvent constitutional restrictions on anti-abortion laws with anti-choice lawmakers’ concerns that their residents cross state lines to seek care. that they need.

And they are. In a national landscape dotted with “abortion deserts” — states in which restrictive laws have closed most abortion clinics — Illinois has embraced its role as an “oasis” of reproductive care.

In 2020, nearly 10,000 women came to Illinois for abortions, a 29% increase from the previous year, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Laws such as the Reproductive Health Act, which my office supported, ensure that no matter what happens to the United States Supreme Court, our residents and all who enter our state seeking health care reproductive health will remain free to make these very personal decisions in consultation with their health care providers.

That’s why, despite Illinois’ pro-reproductive freedom stance, it’s important that states like Missouri attempt to regulate the virtually non-existent abortion clinics and seek to eliminate reproductive freedoms in court.

When the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973, he limited the restrictions states can place on abortion, paving the way for women to access safe reproductive care with fewer barriers and less fear.

Recently, many states have renewed their efforts to test these constitutional guarantees and challenge the Supreme Court to weaken or eliminate them. And under former President Donald Trump, the federal government has joined in the pressure to roll back deerenacting a “gag rule” that prohibited health care providers from using federal money, even for other types of services such as breast cancer screening and contraceptives, if they also offered services abortion or referrals.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationthat the Supreme Court has heard but not yet decided, Mississippi asked the high court to strike down deer.

As like-minded state attorneys general and I argued in an amicus brief we filed in Dobbs, laws that severely restrict access to abortion in one state push women to use health care resources in neighboring states. Reversal deer would immediately increase the pressure on Illinois, as a dozen states have already passed “trigger laws” that will automatically criminalize abortion if the Supreme Court reverses its position.

As Illinois proudly protects reproductive freedom, we would benefit if all women could access the care they need in their own communities, without facing the additional (and often insurmountable) burdens associated with traveling outside the state.

If we support these rights for Illinois women, we must support them for women everywhere.

My office joined a coalition that successfully challenged Title X’s “gag rule” in court. We are still fighting to restore clinics’ access to federal funding, and have opposed laws in states like Texas, South Carolina and Mississippi that have the effect of forcing abortion providers to close. their doors or to cut off access to abortion for a large number of women.

I am proud that Illinois remains a place where reproductive rights are guaranteed, and I am proud to continue to defend those rights wherever they are threatened.

Kwame Raoul is the Attorney General of Illinois.

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