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In anticipation of a legal challenge to abortion law (Roe vs Wade) at a federal level – provoked by states such as Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi all introducing pro-life legislation protecting and recognising the right to life of the unborn child – states such as Illinois and Nevada are introducing radical pro-abortion legislation which appears to remove all legal protection for unborn children, and therefore permitting abortion up until the birth of the child.
If Roe vs Wade is overturned in the Supreme Court, it becomes the prerogative of individual states to make decisions about abortion law. As such, some states are passing radically pro-abortion laws whereas others are passing pro-life legislation.
Most recently, the state of Illinois has introduced legislation which makes abortion a “fundamental right”, stating that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights.” The bill also rolls back some state restrictions on late-term abortions by repealing Illinois’ Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. This piece of legislation involved banning “partial birth” or D & X abortions whereby the child is killed in the process of extracting him/her from the womb.
This extreme abortion legislation which grants no legal recognition to unborn children at all, is also likely to have severe adverse consequences for medical professionals who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to be involved in the abortion procedure.
This radical legislation and similar legislation in New York, supported in principle by British abortion lobby groups such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which allows abortion up until birth, is endorsed by only 1% of people in Britain. This is compared to 70% of women who want to see the abortion limit reduced to 20 weeks or below.
“This bill remains the most radically pro-abortion measure of its kind and would make Illinois an abortion destination for the country,” said Peter Breen, a former Illinois state legislator.
