Speaking to several hundred abortion-rights advocates and elected officials Friday, Gov. JB Pritzker spotlighted his steadfast approach in keeping Illinois a front runner in reproductive health care access.
After taking a victory lap around the measures he’s signed into law that expand reproductive health care access, Pritzker painted a need for abortion-rights leaders and elected officials to stand firm against President Donald Trump’s funding cuts to medical care and other economic policies with trickle down effects on families.
“Donald Trump and his allies have declared war on women’s rights, and make no mistake, they’re coming for Illinois,” Pritzker said during a luncheon hosted by the abortion-rights advocacy organization Personal PAC at a ballroom inside the Hilton Chicago in the Loop. “Their attacks on abortion are part of a broader campaign to control health care, to limit freedom and roll back progress for working families. … And Republicans are attacking all of that. Let me be clear, Illinois will never back down.”
Illinois has been a haven for abortion seekers since neighboring states have restricted access to reproductive care after Roe v. Wade was reversed in 2022.
About 35,000 people traveled to Illinois last year for an abortion — the most of any state — and another 54,000 residents received an abortion here, Personal PAC Board Chair Natalie Federle said.
Illinois abortion providers have braced for another influx of patients from Wisconsin this month after the state’s Planned Parenthood paused abortions as it faces Medicaid funding cuts.
Pritzker’s 10-minute speech Friday comes as he’s ramping up his campaign for reelection next year. All of Illinois’ constitutional offices, an abundance of state legislative seats and four congressional seats are up for grabs in 2026.
Since becoming governor, Pritzker has approved numerous laws widening reproductive health care access. That includes codifying an individual’s right to choose their reproductive health care, providing over-the-counter birth control at pharmacies and protecting doctors from legal attacks for providing abortions to out-of-state residents, among several other laws.
Personal PAC President and CEO Sarah Garza Resnick highlighted the organization’s work in helping to pass those laws.
She said they’re working with state leaders to pass another bill that would change the state’s end-of-life care law that would prevent situations like that of Adriana Smith, a pregnant Georgia mother who was declared brain dead but kept on life support for four months over her family’s objection so doctors could deliver her baby by C-section.
But despite every abortion-rights law enacted in recent years in Illinois, Garza Resnik said Trump and anti-abortion advocates still pose a threat through policies that lead to dwindling access to reproductive care in neighboring states.
“They’re [anti-abortion groups] throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks,” Garza Resnik said. “We need to be just as bold, just as fearless.”