By Margaret Wurth, Human Rights Watch

As a researcher at Human Rights Watch, I’ve spoken with people in many different countries confronting the devastating impacts of abortion restrictions. Women in Brazil, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic who faced unwanted pregnancies but could not access safe and legal abortion because it is illegal in most – or all – circumstances. Attorneys in Ecuador who represented women facing jail time for suspected abortions.

Most recently, I spoke with people in Illinois who have seen firsthand the devastating effects of an abortion restriction that puts young people at risk. The Parental Notice of Abortion Act (or PNA) forces anyone under 18 seeking abortion care to involve an adult family member. Young people unable to involve one of the law’s narrow group of qualifying adults must go to court and ask a judge for permission to have an abortion without family involvement, in a difficult and sometimes traumatizing process known as “judicial bypass.”

Over the past year, Human Rights Watch collaborated with the ACLU of Illinois to investigate the impacts of PNA. We looked at data on the experiences of 192 young people who went through judicial bypass in recent years, and interviewed 37 people in Illinois, including attorneys, healthcare providers, a retired judge, and others. We published our findings in a recent joint report.

The report documents cases of young people who were unable to pursue judicial bypass or found the process too daunting, and as a result had to continue unwanted pregnancies against their wishes or involve unsupportive or even abusive adults who threatened their safety, interfered in their decision-making, and humiliated them. Even when young people are able to navigate the judicial bypass process, it is burdensome and delays their access to abortion care. Appearing before a judge to request permission to see through an abortion decision is highly stressful for young people.

The report shows how the burden of the PNA law in Illinois disproportionately falls on Black, Indigenous, and other young people of color, who constitute the majority of those who went through judicial bypass in recent years.

Our research on the effects of Illinois’ parental involvement law echoed the haunting stories I’d heard when researching abortion restrictions in other countries. People forced to continue unwanted pregnancies against their wishes because they could not access the care they needed. People finding themselves in court to speak about deeply personal decisions about their bodies and lives. Black, Indigenous, and other people of color disproportionately harmed.

Harsh abortion restrictions – whether they force parental involvement, ban abortions after a certain point, ban some abortion methods, restrict access based on the reason for an abortion, or require an ultrasound or a waiting period – all have similar effects. They threaten the health and lives of pregnant people, and delay and obstruct access to health care.

Safeguarding reproductive rights in Illinois is more important than ever. With a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, antiabortion groups across the United States are working hard to dismantle the constitutional right to access abortion established by Roe v. Wade. According to the Guttmacher Institute, “So far in 2021, antiabortion lawmakers have been introducing new legislation in overwhelming numbers: 384 antiabortion provisions introduced in 43 states through February.”

Illinois has an opportunity to do away with the harmful PNA law during the current legislative session. Bills championed by Senator Elgie Sims, Jr., in the Senate and Representative Anna Moeller in the House – SB 2190/HB 1797 – would repeal PNA. Illinois leaders have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to protecting reproductive rights in the state.

Repealing PNA is essential to fulfilling that commitment.

Margaret Wurth is a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The below statement can be attributed to Nusrat Choudhury, legal director at the ACLU of Illinois:
 
“The death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, shot to death by Chicago police officers, is a tragedy for the Toledo family, the community and the entire City. We grieve for his mother, family, and friends.
 
Foot pursuits in Chicago long have been dangerous. That continues today. The Monitor overseeing the consent decree designed to reform the CPD last week demonstrated that the percentage of Chicago police foot pursuits involving deadly force more than doubled in the most recent reporting period. 
 
Four years ago, the US Department of Justice unequivocally found that CPD’s lack of a foot pursuit policy contributed to patterns of excessive force against communities of color. For four years, the City and CPD resisted repeated calls from advocates and the community to adopt a foot pursuit policy. It should not have taken the death of a 13-year-old to finally get a response. 
 
A Chicago Police Department policy on foot pursuits is long overdue and must address unsafe foot pursuit tactics and set forth guidelines that balance the objective of apprehending people for whom there is reasonable suspicion of unlawful conduct with the serious risk of injury and harm.”

The below statement can be attributed to Nusrat Choudhury, legal director at the ACLU of Illinois:
 
“The Monitor’s report issued last night begs a simple question: What change in policing are Chicago residents actually seeing in their neighborhoods? This question urgently needs a positive answer more than two years after the entry of a federal court consent decree governing Chicago police to remedy patterns of excessive force against people of color and people with disabilities.
 
But Black and Brown neighborhoods are seeing little, if any, change.
 
The City has made insufficient progress in changing policing on the ground. Today’s report catalogues once again that the City and Chicago Police Department missed most deadlines—measures required under the consent decree to fix broken policing in a City with a painful history of police violence. Most strikingly, the monitor’s report shows a continued absence of real community engagement – the lynchpin of ensuring that changes to policing address communities’ needs and painstakingly rebuild the trust between police and neighborhoods that has been destroyed.
 
The Monitor finds that the City and CPD lack consistent procedures for engaging community members and, that when they do reach out, they prevent “meaningful participation” by seeking public comment late in the process when policies are close to being finalized. This is not community engagement. The City and CPD must actually want to meet early with community members and organizations from the neighborhoods most impacted by police violence, be open to their recommendations, and collaborate on solutions. This approach has been woefully absent from the City’s response to community concerns about wrong home raids that hurt Black and Brown communities, where the City has not met with the coalition of community organizations enforcing the Chicago Police consent decree, which raised this issue months ago.
 
The Monitor recognizes that many of those who protested in the streets of Chicago last summer following the horrific killing of George Floyd are calling for police accountability and other changes that directly relate to around twenty separate provisions of the Chicago policing consent decree. Yet, Chicago police met many protesters with baton strikes to the head, pepper spray, retaliation for recording police violence, and efforts to evade accountability by covering their name badges and star numbers.
 
In the face of this real time police violence in the midst of calls for racial justice, missing fewer deadlines and providing documents to the Monitor is not enough. We call on the City to reflect in its conduct that the consent decree is an opportunity for working with community partners in the hard work of transformational change to advance fairness and safety for all communities. 
 
It has been four years since the U.S. Department of Justice report laid bare the problems causing the Chicago Police Department’s pattern of unconstitutional police violence against people of color. The need for action cannot wait another day.”