The Governor Finally Expands Business in Illinois

It begins like any other recruitment ad for a leadership position at an influential organization. Planned Parenthood of Illinois recently engaged an exclusive recruiting firm to help it find a new president and CEO, one who has the “ability to lead and execute strategic plans.” 

Shortly into the job description, one finds an interesting requirement. The president and CEO will need to to launch a capital campaign that “will result in four new” Planned Parenthood “health centers.” Planned Parenthood already operates 17 clinics in Illinois, including a mega-clinic in Aurora, strategically located within an hour’s drive of both the Indiana and the Wisconsin borders. (Illinois law does not require a minor to be a state resident to get a judicial waiver to have an abortion.) And just last month, Planned Parenthood opened a clinic in Flossmoor, a suburban village that, while affluent and racially diverse, is almost entirely surrounded by economically challenged communities, largely populated by people of color. The new Flossmoor clinic offers medical (i.e., the abortion pill) and elective surgical abortions up to the 20th week of pregnancy. Why the sudden expansion? Four new centers, in addition to Flossmoor? 

Why would the nation’s largest provider of abortions open additional clinics when even its former research affiliate, the Guttmacher Institute, has noted that nationally the number of women choosing to end their pregnancies is declining? The job description may provide a clue: The new president and CEO will “capitalize on the ongoing changes” in local and national health care to enhance the “organization’s financial success.” Couple that with the requirement, or “must,” that the new officer “actively cultivate relationships at the top levels” of the state’s “legislative and administrative leadership” and you have your answer. 

 Last year, Republican governor Bruce Rauner signed House Bill 40, which provides all Illinois Medicaid recipients and employees of the state of Illinois with abortion services at taxpayer expense. This new abortion benefit is limited with respect neither to the number of procedures a woman chooses to have nor to the stage in her pregnancy at which she chooses to have them.

After he had publicly promised that he would veto HB40, Rauner signed it, over the objection of most of those who put him into office. Not one of the 73 Illinois House and Senate Republicans voted for it. While no one knows for sure what goes on in backroom politics, it’s fairly obvious that Rauner’s decision has allowed Planned Parenthood to “capitalize on the ongoing changes” in Illinois as it seeks to expand its reach. At taxpayer expense — and at the expense of the developmentally disabled, who continue to see a reduction in the services they need because of Illinois’s ongoing fiscal crisis and failure to reimburse private social-service agencies.

VOTE FOR IVES!