Illinois pharmacists can prescribe hormonal contraceptives, emergency contraception

Even as births are in a freefall nationally, dropping two percent (2%) from 2022 to 2023 alone and sitting dangerously below the national replacement rate, Illinois is redoubling its efforts to “help [residents] with family planning and prevent unintended pregnancy.” 

Key Takeaways:

• Pharmacists in Illinois are now able to prescribe hormonal birth control and emergency contraception.

• The only requirements are to sit through an online training session and review a patient screening questionnaire.

• Eligible for the program are the vaginal ring, arm patch, Depo Provera injection, oral hormonal contraceptives, and the Ella emergency contraception pill.

• Plan B and the progestin-only contraception Opill are already available over-the-counter. 

The Details:

On June 24, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) released an updated Standing Order for Reproductive Health granting pharmacists wider prescribing powers for certain kinds of hormonal contraception and emergency contraception. Standing orders are common in medical settings, referring to an action that can be taken or a guideline that can be implemented without a physician’s participation or direct approval. 

After sitting for an online training session and reviewing a patient screening questionnaire, Illinois pharmacists are now authorized to prescribe the vaginal ring, the arm patch, Depo Provera injection, oral hormonal contraceptives, or Ella emergency contraception pill without any physician or mid-level practitioner oversight. 

Emergency contraceptive Plan B and progestin-only contraception Opill are both available over-the-counter. 

Patients who are ineligible for a pharmacist prescription based on their screening questionnaire results are to be referred to a doctor’s office. 

Why It Matters:

Live Action News has repeatedly described the abortifacient nature of hormonal contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives. Illinois’ standing order on reproductive health makes pharmacists indirectly complicit in abortions. 

While the standing order does not explicitly say that all pharmacists are required to undergo this training, its purpose is “to ensure that Illinois residents can easily access self-administered contraceptive methods, emergency contraception, and pregnancy tests at their local pharmacy to help with family planning and reduce unintended pregnancy.”

If the goal is for every “local pharmacy” to participate, what about the conscience rights of pharmacists, who — like a Texas nurse practitioner fired by a CVS MinuteClinic for refusing to prescribe hormonal contraception — don’t want to assist in abortion, or are morally or ethically opposed to the prescription of hormonal contraceptives? No mention is made of the professional expectations in this scenario. 

The IDPH press release announcing the updated standing order made note of other abortion extremism, reading “Under the leadership of Governor Pritzker, IDPH has taken steps to further protect access to reproductive health care.”

Among the related actions spearheaded by Pritzker were a 2023 plan for extensive networking between state agencies and publicly funded hospital systems, like the University of Illinois at Chicago, to create a “hospital navigation program” for “patients who present for abortions at clinics who need a higher level of care than can be provided at the clinics.”

A nurse-staffed hotline will assist “patients with complex medical needs in scheduling appointments within hospital systems, acquiring required pre-operative testing, and arranging payment, transportation, and childcare for treatment.”

Five million dollars in capital funding will be administered by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to help abortion providers “fund improvements and repairs, new construction, security upgrades, and equipment to increase capacity and enhance safety, which includes the purchase of vehicles for mobile care units.”  

In 2024, Pritzker announced that $2 million had been awarded to three groups — Midwest Access Project (MAP), Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL), and the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Nursing — specifically to train health care practitioners to commit abortions. 

And in 2025, Pritzker reiterated “that pregnant women in the state have the right to the full range of life-saving care, including abortions, when they are in Illinois emergency rooms.”

This is nonsensical, because the proper treatment for medical emergencies that arise late in pregnancy would be an emergency C-section, which can be performed in minutes, not a multi-day abortion procedure.

If a medical emergency arises early in pregnancy and the baby has to be delivered before the age of viability, this tragic unintended consequence of providing medical care to save the mother’s life would not constitute an induced abortion, which is an act to deliberately kill the baby.

The Big Picture:

Illinois politicians’ fixation on ever-expanding abortion and contraceptive access comes at a time when national support for birth control is at an all-time low since Gallup polls began tracking it in 2012. 

To be sure, the vast majority of Americans still believe birth control to be morally acceptable, but 17% now say otherwise, a number many would have considered unthinkably high a decade ago. Growing numbers of Americans also oppose teen sex and sex outside marriage, the very situations that often lead girls and women to seek out birth control. 

In fact, opposition to hormonal birth control has shifted out of the religious and political right contexts into broader societal awareness and acceptance, so much so that mainstream media is paying attention. Even VOGUE is covering body literacy and the health data that the female fifth vital sign, the menstrual cycle, communicates. 

Mainstream media isn’t just acknowledging that fertility awareness methods and natural family planning exist. They’re finally addressing the many and varied harms of hormonal birth control, even if through a paternalistic, head-patting lens.

One need look no further than the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use that Illinois pharmacists, included in the standing order, should reference before prescribing contraception without physician oversight.

The multi-colored, many-columned chart acknowledges that hormonal contraceptives in particular may be a poor option for women with:

• current or past breast cancer

• kidney disease

• liver disease

• risk for blood clots

• diabetes or vascular complications

• migraines with aura

• high blood pressure

• ischemic heart disease

• lupus

... and those who are smokers.

Health conditions aside, hormonal birth control is associated with causing health problems, even death, and unintended consequences, like benign brain tumors requiring surgery, even for healthy young women. Most recently, birth control pills have been linked to an increased risk of binge eating. 

The Bottom Line:

Illinois’ expansion of pharmacist prescribing powers for hormonal contraception and emergency contraceptives is in line with its track record of abortion and contraception extremism, but out of touch with broader cultural trends.