New federal lawsuit from conservative legal group challenges Illinois abortion protections

[November 22, 2024]  By Andrew Adams

A conservative Catholic legal group is suing Illinois over a landmark state law enshrining a “fundamental right” to abortion care and requiring insurance companies to cover abortion and other reproductive health care.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Chicago by the Thomas More Society, seeks to prevent the state from requiring insurers to cover abortion coverage by arguing that doing so violates the First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights of its plaintiffs.

It also argues that the state is in violation of the Comstock Act, which criminalizes mailing abortion-related materials, because it requires health insurers to cover providers who send abortion medication in the mail.

This federal provision, which hasn’t been widely enforced against abortion providers in decades, has been discussed among anti-abortion activists and conservative politicians as one way to crack down on abortion access.

The lawsuit also relies on the Coats-Snowe Amendment and the Weldon Amendment, which prevent states that receive federal funding from discriminating against health care entities because they don’t provide abortions.

It was filed on behalf of six organizations and six individuals against Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Department of Insurance Director Ann Gillespie and Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

“Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his administration are on an uncompromising campaign to transform the Land of Lincoln into the nation’s abortion capital,” Thomas More Society’s head of litigation Peter Breen said in a statement. “In doing so, they have shown little-to-no regard for the rights of those who believe that all human life is worth protecting.”

The plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit include three anti-abortion advocacy groups, a church, a private Christian school, a DuPage County machining business and six individuals.

The law at the center of the legal complaint, the Reproductive Health Act, passed in 2019 and was meant at the time as a protective measure ahead of the expected overturning of Roe v. Wade. It has been strengthened several times in the years since.

The legal complaint alleges the law forces Illinoisans “to choose between paying for other people’s elective abortions with their premiums or forgoing health insurance entirely.”

The lawsuit equated that to a choice of struggling to recruit staff by not offering insurance on principal or subjecting themselves to “charges of hypocrisy” by offering insurance that covers behaviors they condemn. They argue this prevents them from being able to engage in “expressive association” as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.