Anti-abortion groups, employers sue Pritzker over Illinois abortion law

Lisa Schencker, Chicago TribuneChicago Tribune

Half a dozen groups and employers who oppose abortion are suing Gov. JB Pritzker and other state officials, aiming to stop them from enforcing a law that requires health insurers in Illinois to cover abortions and abortion medications at no cost to patients.

The groups sued Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Department of Insurance Acting Director Ann Gillespie on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They’re targeting provisions of Illinois law that require state-regulated health insurers to cover abortions and to cover medications used to terminate pregnancies without charging patients any money out-of-pocket for them.

The organizations allege in their lawsuit that Illinois’ laws are forcing them, as employers, to buy health insurance plans for their employees that cover abortion and abortion medications despite the groups’ stances against abortion. They argue that because patients are provided abortion medications free, everyone else’s premiums help pay for the drugs.

Those suing state officials include Students for Life of America, the Pro-Life Action League, Illinois Right to Life, the Midwest Bible Church, the Clapham School, DuPage Precision Products and six Illinois residents who work for the organizations. Attorneys with the Thomas More Society, a not-for-profit law firm, filed the lawsuit on the groups’ behalf.

“These compulsory abortion-coverage laws provide no exceptions or accommodations for employers or individuals who object to abortion on religious or moral grounds, not even for churches,” the groups argue in the lawsuit. “As a result, Illinois residents who oppose abortion have no way of obtaining state-regulated health insurance that excludes abortion coverage, forcing many of them to choose between paying for other people’s elective abortions with their premiums or forgoing health insurance entirely.”

Alex Gough, a spokesperson for Pritzker, said in an email Wednesday that the lawsuit is “nothing but another extreme action that would put the safety of women seeking reproductive care in jeopardy.”

Raoul said in a statement Wednesday that abortion is health care and “too many women around the nation have died or experienced near-fatal medical emergencies because they were deprived of access to lifesaving abortion care.”

“I am committed to continuing to protect reproductive rights and preventing Illinois patients from facing such a nightmare,” Raoul said in the statement. “I am equally committed to protecting access to coverage for reproductive health care that includes abortion, because cost should not stand in the way of patients receiving critical abortion care.”

The Department of Insurance did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

The laws cited in the lawsuit apply only to state-regulated health plans. Many large employers offer self-funded insurance, which is not regulated by the state. But most of the organizations behind the lawsuit say in their complaint that they are too small to offer self-funded insurance.state-regulated plans for their workers”].

This is not the first lawsuit over Illinois’ abortion laws.

In September, a Sangamon County Circuit Court judge threw out a case brought by the Illinois Baptist State Association, which sought to prevent the state Department of Insurance from enforcing the law requiring health insurers to cover abortions. In his order, the judge wrote that the association could have purchased other health plans — not regulated by the state — that did not include abortion coverage.

In recent years, Illinois has strengthened its laws supporting abortion access, as surrounding states have made it more difficult for their residents to get abortions following the fall of Roe v. Wade.

In 2019, Pritzker signed the Illinois Reproductive Health Act, enshrining abortion as a “fundamental right” in the state. In 2023, Pritzker signed a bill into law shielding individuals from civil and criminal discovery from other states and from extraditions related to providing reproductive health care. That law also allowed more types of providers in Illinois to provide certain types of abortion care.