A year after Cook County Commissioner Bridget Degnen announced she wanted to amend Illinois’ proposed $10 billion budget to provide $2 million in grants to community organizations that commit abortions, the county has allocated that exact amount to The Chicago Abortion Fund.
The Fund pays for abortions as well as abortion-related costs like travel. But the question is, why — in a state where Medicaid pays even for impoverished residents’ elective abortions — are lawmakers pushing even more taxpayer money toward abortion?
Key Takeaways:
- Cook County has allocated $2 million to the Chicago Abortion Fund to pay for abortions and abortion-related expenses; state Medicaid already covers all abortions for recipients.
- Abortion is legal in Illinois up to “viability” and thereafter for threats to the life or general health of the pregnant woman. The state does not require abortion businesses to be licensed.
- The state has an “all-trimester” abortion facility in Cook County (Chicago).
The Details:
Cook County in Illinois has selected the Chicago Abortion Fund to receive a $2 million grant that was included in the county’s budget this year specifically for abortion.
As the state itself raises taxes while failing to fund the state’s transit system in its June $55 billion budget, it is clear that priorities in Illinois are skewed.
“Last night’s failure to pass a comprehensive transportation bill to avert a fiscal cliff jeopardizes Illinois transit systems with expected cuts, massive lay-offs, and service disruptions for the Chicago Transit Authority, Pace, and Metra,” the Labor Alliance for Public Transportation said in a statement. “As the General Assembly adjourns with neither reform or revenue, transit riders and workers alike are left concerned about the future of our communities.”
But in Cook County, leaders want to ensure their communities can end the lives of future citizens.
“We’re proud to say we’re doing this work in a city and county and state that invests in abortion access,” said Alicia Hurtado, director of advocacy and communications at the Chicago Abortion Fund.
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Chicago Abortion Fund has spent $16 million on abortions and abortion-related costs, according to Hurtado.
Cook County 6th District Commissioner Donna Miller even went so far as to claim that paying for killing preborn human beings is “moral.”
“This investment is not just a financial commitment, it’s a moral one,” Miller claimed. “It really says that here in Cook County, we protect access to abortion care. We ensure that no person will be denied health care based on their income, immigration status or ZIP code.”
But Illinois taxpayers (via state Medicaid) already pay for the abortions of impoverished Illinois residents, and lawmakers know this — and Planned Parenthood is well aware of this, too, clearly advertising “FREE ABORTION”:
An “all-trimester” abortion facility also opened in Chicago this year (a sister center to Hope Clinic in Granite City), reportedly committing abortions up to 34 weeks. Abortion is legal in Illinois up to “viability” and thereafter for threats to the life or general health of the pregnant woman. The state does not require abortion businesses to be licensed.
So, if the $2M to the Chicago Abortion Fund isn’t paying for the abortions of underprivileged Illinois residents (who are likely already covered by state Medicaid), whose abortions is it paying for? Miller may have spilled the beans when she mentioned “immigration status” along with “zip code.”
Since all Illinoisans with insurance (public or private) can get abortions with no co-pays or deductibles, it may be that the Chicago Abortion Fund is paying largely for the abortions of undocumented immigrants and out-of-state residents.
The Context:
It is unclear how much money Cook County is willing to spend to help women who suffer complications from the abortions paid for by the Chicago Abortion Fund.
After all, there have been countless cases of botched abortions in Illinois, with Planned Parenthood locations calling 911 for patients who are “not alert,” “bleeding out,” and “unresponsive.” One Illinois abortion client was even sent to an emergency room to “finish” her abortion. Cook County
In 2012, 24-year-old Tonya Reaves died after suffering a uterine perforation and other injuries at a Planned Parenthood facility in Chicago. She lost 30% of her blood volume in internal bleeding, with roughly one liter of blood pooling in her abdominal cavity while Planned Parenthood delayed emergency medical care for five hours. Her family later filed a lawsuit.
More recently, Dr. Keith Reisinger-Kindle, an abortionist in Champaign, Illinois (about two hours south of Cook County/Chicago), was fined and reprimanded by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation for allegedly perforating a woman’s uterus while leaving half of her aborted baby’s body inside her two years ago. Despite this, he is still allowed to continue committing abortions in Illinois.
In addition, Planned Parenthood closed four of its centers in Illinois in January, encouraging women in the state to obtain care from its virtual app, PPDirect, which offers the abortion pill. Some women (about 11%, according to a recent analysis of insurance data) visit emergency rooms with significant adverse effects from taking the abortion pill, such as hemorrhaging. If those women are state Medicaid recipients, this means Illinois taxpayers are not only footing the bill for these women’s elective abortions, but the resulting abortion injuries as well.
And if abortion-injured women follow the advice of abortionists and choose to misreport those complications as arising from natural miscarriage instead, this skews the true picture of those abortion pill complications, which are never reported to the pill’s manufacturers or to the FDA. This leaves other women in the dark about its true risks to their own health.
The Bottom Line:
Abortion is legal in Illinois at any time for essentially any reason, due to the state law’s broad language — and some abortionists have made clear that they believe the very state of being pregnant (and not wanting to be) is reason enough to commit an abortion. Illinois’ 2019 Reproductive Health Act ended requirements for abortion business licensing and also allowed non-physicians to commit abortions. Medicaid and private insurance in the state already pay for elective abortions.
Given all of this information, it seems clear that throwing even more taxpayer funding at abortion in Illinois has very little to do with a desire to aid the underprivileged with “health care.”
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