News & Commentary

In recent weeks and months we have seen several painful examples of the way in which politics is used to threaten and damage women’s health care – the Komen/Planned Parenthood funding issue, the issue of contraceptive coverage in employee health care benefit plans, the personhood amendments in states across the nation and severe restrictions on reproductive healthcare in several states. Now the campaign against women’s health care has come back to Illinois. We are currently facing two bills that seek to close down access to reproductive health care under the guise of protecting women’s health– by ramming measures through, of all places, the Agriculture Committee.

The ACLU of Illinois' Executive Director Colleen Connell was on WTTW's Chicago Tonight discussing the recent compromise by the Obama administration to ensure that employees of religiously affiliated institutions get contraceptive coverage at no additional cost to them, without requiring religiously-affiliated non-profit employers to pay for the cost of the contraceptive coverage.  The ACLU of Illinois has been holding panel discussions about the contraception issue throughout Illinois, entitled "The War on Contraception" as part of our Defending the Targets of Intolerance campaign.

On Thursday, February 9th, the ACLU of Illinois will join with other concerned groups and individuals from across Cook County to oppose bills that would gut a County ordinance that limits County assistance to the federal Bureau for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Americans increasingly are using online social networks in order to communicate with family and friends, share photos and news and express their own political views. Increasingly, private interests (and government entities) try to get access to this personal information for a variety of purposes -- from marketing to surveillance. All of us need tools to protect our personal information.