This Act sets forth the fundamental rights of individuals to make autonomous decisions about one’s own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care. This includes the fundamental right of an individual to use or refuse contraception or sterilization, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right; and the fundamental right of an individual who becomes pregnant to continue the pregnancy and give birth to a child, or to have an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise that right. This Act restricts the ability of the State to deny, interfere with, or discriminate against these fundamental rights.
     The purposes of this Act are:

Terms Used In Illinois Compiled Statutes 775 ILCS 55/1-5

  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • individual: shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 5 ILCS 70/1.36
  • State: when applied to different parts of the United States, may be construed to include the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" may be construed to include the said district and territories. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 5 ILCS 70/1.14

         (1) To establish laws and policies that protect
    
individual decision-making in the area of reproductive health and that support access to the full scope of quality reproductive health care for all in our State; and
        (2) To permit regulation of reproductive health care,
    
including contraception, abortion, and maternity care, only to the extent that such regulation is narrowly tailored to protect a compelling State interest, which for the purposes of this Act means: consistent with accepted standards of clinical practice, evidence based, and narrowly tailored for the limited purpose of protecting the health of people seeking such care and in the manner that least restricts a person’s autonomous decision-making.