Gov. J.B. Pritzker takes questions on Monday after a news conference at which his administration announced a new interagency effort to ensure access to abortion care in Illinois.
To expand Illinois’ capacity to care for the sharp increase in abortion-seekers, the state’s Department of Public Health will spend $10 million to create a hotline to aid callers in finding providers and making appointments. Pritzker had proposed the funding in February, and Democratic lawmakers included it in the state’s fiscal year 2024 budget this spring. The hotline is in its beginning stages as IDPH puts out a request for proposals.
Additionally, Pritzker announced a new collaborative meant to help patients who need more complex reproductive health care. The state’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services, along with IDPH, will join the University of Illinois at Chicago hospital, Rush University Medical Center and the Chicago Abortion Fund to launch a hotline aimed at these high-risk patients next month.
Laursen said this patient had to travel more than eight hours to Chicago and figure out child care for her other three kids – on top of the stress of knowing that being seen by a hospital-based abortion provider would be more expensive than the clinic where she originally had an appointment. “No one should have to travel to a city they’ve never been in to access health care,” Jeyifo said. “No one should have to depend on strangers to access the things they need for that trip. But this is our reality in the fallout of this horrific decision. And it is up to us together to be creative and nimble and there for people who are denied agency over their bodies and lives in their own states.”
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