Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul
Illinois' attorney general says a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling which blocked America's largest abortion provider from suing the state of South Carolina for refusing to give the abortion provider Medicaid money should also bolster Illinois' claims that abortion opponents cannot sue to strike down an Illinois law requiring all health insurers to pay for abortions.
On June 30, lawyers with the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a brief in federal court in Chicago in support of their effort to dismiss a lawsuit brought by pro-life advocates suing the state over the new state law mandating abortion coverage in private health insurance plans.
The brief specifically argued the Supreme Court's June ruling in the case known as Medina v Planned Parenthood blocks at least some of the ability of pro-life advocates to sue the state under the same laws addressed in the Medina case.
In the Medina case, Planned Parenthood and a South Carolina woman argued federal law doesn't allow the state of South Carolina from refusing to allow Medicaid money to be used to pay for health care services received through Planned Parenthood.
South Carolina said it was refusing to allow Medicaid to pay Planned Parenthood because the organization essentially uses Medicaid money to offset its spending on providing abortion services, which South Carolina said is a way to work around federal law which otherwise forbids Medicaid from being used to pay for abortions.
Government funding of Planned Parenthood has long been a source of political strife in the U.S., as conservatives, in particular, have sought to end government funding for the organization which is reported to provide at least 40% of all abortions in the U.S.
Planned Parenthood has claimed abortions account for only 3% of its medical services.
According to some estimates, as much as 43% of Planned Parenthood's more than $1 billion in funding comes from government sources, including Medicaid and federal and state grants.
While the funding does not directly pay for abortions, conservatives and other critics have asserted the government money allows the organization to use other funds to continue providing abortions.
In recent years, conservatives have moved to cut off that funding, including in South Carolina.
In the latest federal budget, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have cut funding to Planned Parenthood from the federal budget. Planned Parenthood has sued, asserting the measure amounts to an illegal and unconstitutional move to punish Planned Parenthood for providing and promoting abortion.
A Massachusetts federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order purporting to forbid Congress and the president from cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. The Trump administration is expected to appeal that ruling and seek to block the ruling, which conservatives said amounts to judicial overreach.
As the budget battle plays out, other fights over abortion access have continued to unfold in legislatures and courts.
In Illinois, the pro-abortion Democrats who dominate Springfield enacted the Reproductive Health Act in 2019. The law requires every health insurance plan regulated by the Illinois Department of Insurance to provide abortion coverage, if the plans also provide pregnancy-related benefits.
Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats have described the law as a key cog in their goal to make Illinois into a safe haven for abortions and abortion providers.
"In this state, women will always have the right to reproductive health care," Pritzker said at the time he signed the RHA into law.
In 2024, however, religious organizations and other abortion opponents sued the state over the RHA, claiming the state's goal of advancing abortion rights conflicts with the rights of those opposed to abortion - an opposition often based on deep religious beliefs concerning the sanctity of human life - to not be forced by the state to pay for others' abortions.
A lawsuit was filed first in Illinois state court by an association of Baptist churches.
It was followed in federal court by a lawsuit from a coalition of pro-life organizations, churches, employers and individuals.
All of the lawsuits claim the law forces them to choose between foregoing health insurance coverage for themselves and their employees, or purchasing health insurance policies which include abortion coverage, which they said would make them complicit in a procedure they regard "as an act of murder."
A judge in Springfield ruled in favor of the state in the Baptists' lawsuit, finding the Baptist churches' rights weren't violated because they can still purchase health care coverage from insurers regulated by other states or the federal government.
The Illinois State Baptist Association appealed that ruling in October 2024. A state appeals court has not yet ruled in the case.
In the meantime, the lawsuit in Chicago in federal court has continued.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has sought to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming the law doesn't violate anyone's religious rights, because the state is not "forcing" anyone to purchase health insurance coverage.
Raoul also has argued the plaintiffs don't have legal standing to sue to enforce provisions in federal law, commonly known as the Coates-Snowe Amendment and the Weldon Amendment, which generally forbid governments from discriminating against health providers or in health care funding over objections to abortion.
In the Medina case, Planned Parenthood had sued the state of South Carolina under those provisions, claiming states, like South Carolina, can't cut off abortion providers from state funding, because it violates the rights of patients enrolled in Medicaid to select their health care provider of choice.
In the Medina ruling, the Supreme Court rejected those arguments, agreeing the federal laws don't give private parties, like Planned Parenthood or their clients, the right to sue to enforce those provisions.
In that case, a group of Democrat-led states, including Massachusetts, California, and others, filed a brief with the Supreme Court, urging the high court to side with Planned Parenthood on the question.
Noticeably absent from the list of progressive Democratic state attorneys general signing onto the brief was Illinois' Kwame Raoul, despite his penchant for routinely signing onto such briefs and lawsuits with his Democratic counterparts.
On June 30, Raoul's team appeared to indicate why, as they now seek to use the Medina ruling to defeat the litigation against the RHA and allow the state to continue requiring health insurers regulated by Illinois' state government to cover abortion.
Just as the Medina decision ended Planned Parenthood's lawsuit vs South Carolina, so, too, that ruling should mean the pro-life plaintiffs also cannot sue Illinois to require the state to allow insurers to make health insurance coverage available that doesn't require them to pay for abortion services that conflict with their beliefs.
"The Medina decision confirms that ... Plaintiffs cannot ... enforce the Coats-Snowe and Weldon Amendments," the Illinois attorney general's team wrote in their supplemental brief. "The Amendments are spending-clause statutes that do not contain an unambiguous intent to confer individual rights onto any of the Plaintiffs."
As of July 9, the plaintiffs had not responded to the state's Medina filing.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings has not yet ruled on Illinois' motion to dismiss the RHA lawsuit.
