(The Center Square) – Reactions are mixed to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposal to spend tens of millions of dollars on reproductive health initiatives.
The governor’s budget for fiscal year 2026 maintains fiscal 2025 funding levels on services that include abortion. The spending plan’s summary allots $20 million for reproductive health initiatives, including $10 million for a public-facing navigation hotline to centralize and streamline appointment-making, $5 million for a learning/training collaborative for providers and $2 million for freestanding reproductive health care clinics.
In recent years, Illinois budgets also included abortion funding through Medicaid.
State Rep. Amy “Murri” Briel, D-Ottawa, called for Illinois government to continue funding abortions. Briel said it’s important for Illinois to buffer the wall with neighboring states that have stricter abortion laws.
“Because so many states around us are what they call ‘blacked out,’ meaning there’s no access to any sorts of care, there are fears, and rightly so, that they could lose access to even medical abortion medication,” Briel told The Center Square.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned heavily on abortion and lost to Donald Trump in the presidential election last November, but Briel said she did not want to see Illinois Democrats spend less or focus less on the issue.
“No, I think that putting funding into health care in all aspects is extraordinarily important. As a legislator, I would like to see that level of funding continue,” Briel said.
Chicago South Side Republican Chairman Devin Jones is opposed to taxpayer-funded abortion. Jones said his stance is one that cares about women.
“Less than 1% of abortions are because of rape or incest, right, so the vast majority are financial and convenience issues. The fact that we’ve built up a society where men, by and large, have made women feel like they cannot afford to do what their body naturally does, which is to give birth to children. To think that there’s something wrong with that, that you can’t have a career, you can’t have an education, we should not have a society where women can’t have children and can’t go to college, can’t work a job, can’t thrive,” Jones told The Center Square.
Pritzker said his budget plan has “protected Illinoisans’ right to life-saving care, including for abortions, through a legislative package enshrining the protections of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act into state law.”
Pritzker said the spending plan also “expanded reproductive rights by prohibiting employment, credit, or housing discrimination based on reproductive health decisions.”
Tonya Tucker, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Illinois Action, said the organization is “grateful for the work Governor Pritzker and his administration have done to protect and expand access to reproductive health care in Illinois.
“In 2019, under the first Trump Administration, Planned Parenthood of Illinois was forced out of the Title X program,” Tucker told The Center Square by email. “This loss of revenue has had devastating and lasting consequences.”
Tucker said the state is able to reimburse a portion of the cost, but it doesn’t cover the full cost, “especially for those who are uninsured or require financial assistance.”
“We urge the Governor to consider earmarking a $3.5 million increase in family planning to cover services like birth control, STI testing and treatment and cancer screenings for Illinoisians that are most at risk for not getting these needed services,” Tucker said.
Even though the state faced a projected deficit of more than $3 billion, Pritzker’s $55.2 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2026 is up from a record $53.1 billion for fiscal 2025.
Catrina Barker contributed to this story.
