With a sense of relief and elation, Chicago Women Take Action, thanked Governor Rauner for listening to the voices of women and signing HB40, the bill that protects women’s access to abortion and provides access to women whose insurance needs are met with state funds. “As one of the many women’s groups that worked on the passage of HB40, we are elated that Governor Rauner listened to the voices of women and signed the Bill that protects and expands abortion rights. No woman should be denied the right to full health care services because of whom she works for or how she pays for her insurance,” said Marilyn Katz, a co-convener of Chicago Women Take Action (CWTA) and long-time activist.

For those who do not know HB40 does two important things. On the one hand, and most widely known, it ends an automatic trigger that would have made abortion illegal if Roe v Wade, the current guiding legal decision for the nation, were ever over-turned by an act of the Supreme Court or Congress. Equally, and more immediately important, HB40 ends the prohibition of state funds being used to pay for abortion services, which for the past decades has meant that both those employees whose health insurance came from the state and those on state funded healthcare programs, like Medicaid, were denied the right to abortion. At a time when women’s health services are under assault in nearly 40 states across the nation, we are proud to live in one where the voices of women are not only loud ones, but ones that are listened to and acted upon. For more information about Chicago Women Take Action go to ChicagoWomenTakeAction.com.