After Texas passed and enacted their ban on abortions after a fetus’s heartbeat is first detected in the sixth-week of pregnancy, Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) filed a bill in response.
First, let’s consider what the Texas law does.
Texas’s S.B. No. 8 “The Texas Heartbeat Act”
– Creates a civil right of action on behalf of any person who wants to sue a person who performs or aids an abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (6-weeks)
o One who performs or induces an abortion
o Pays for an abortion
o Intends to perform or pay for an abortion
– Establishes a minimum $10,000 civil award to a person who successfully sues another person under the act
In layman’s terms, this legislation was Texas legislators’ way of protecting preborn humans by restricting abortion access. Since the Supreme Court has routinely cited Roe v. Wade in forbidding states from enforcing abortion bans, this legislation utilizes private enforcement (citizen enforcement rather than government enforcement) so the members of the Court would be required to uphold the law—and they did.
Now, let’s consider what the proposed Illinois law would do.
Illinois’s HB 4146 “The Texas Act (The Expanding Abortion Services Act)”
– Creates a civil right of action on behalf of any person who wants to sue another person who commits one of the following acts or even “intends to engage” in such conduct:
o Domestic violence
o Sexual assault
o Causing an unintended pregnancy
o Enabling a person who causes an unintended pregnancy
– Establishes a minimum $10,000 civil award to a person who successfully sues another person under the act
o $5,000 of the “fine” goes a new state fund that would pay for the abortions of non-residents who travel to Illinois to circumvent their own states’ abortion laws
In layman’s terms, this legislation is clearly a reaction to Texas’s abortion ban. The ramifications would entail the possibility of a husband being slapped with a $10,000 fine for impregnating his wife if he cannot prove that she intended to get pregnant; a husband who, through the fine, would be forced to pay for several abortions that would be performed on non-Illinoisans who travel to Illinois to evade their state’s abortion bans.
In response to the Illinois bill, Ralph Rivera of Illinois Right to Life Action said, “We’re talking about human life . . . Taking a serious matter and trying to be flippant . . . she could’ve just stated that and not filed a bill.”
Unfortunately, as the light at the end of the tunnel of the abortion debate gets brighter, abortion supporters will become increasingly desperate, using any tactic they can to keep the darkness of abortion looming over the land. Representative Cassidy’s bill is just the most recent example of that. Instead of joining Texas’s legislators in fulfilling the governmental duty to equally protect all humans, born and preborn, Rep. Cassidy chose to mock them and use her power to advocate for her ideology rather than her constituents.
Suggesting an Illinoisan should pay thousands of dollars so several non-Illinoisans can violate the spirit of their states’ laws and legally kill their preborn children in Illinois? And for what? Having consensual sex that results in pregnancy?
This notion calls for one to use alliteration in characterizing Rep. Kelly Cassidy, but let’s resist that temptation and just say the bill is crazy.