Funding of Abortions: Attorneys from the Thomas More Society are appealing to the Illinois Supreme Court to stop a state law requiring taxpayer funding of abortions for Medicaid recipients. According to the Petition to Appeal dated December 17, 2018, filed on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Illinois taxpayers, the funding for the law violates the state constitution’s balanced budget requirement. In September 2018, an appellate court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law, previously known as “House Bill 40,” or HB 40.

Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, stated: “The decisions of the lower courts effectively write our balanced budget requirement out of the Illinois Constitution. We’re asking the Illinois Supreme Court to interpret and enforce the constitution and protect taxpayers against future unbalanced budget spending, including the unfunded spending for elective abortions required by HB 40.”

Breen said funding for HB 40 was not validly provided and its effective date was improperly determined. The petition alleges several issues with the new law, including that HB 40:

• Has not been legally funded, because the General Assembly has not made the estimate of available revenues to pay for the abortions, as required by the Illinois Constitution.
• Does not implicate the political question doctrine, a limited doctrine where courts decline to hear issues because of their political character.
• Was passed after the deadline set for an early effective date by the Illinois Constitution and Effective Date of Laws Act.

Read the Petition to Appeal filed by Thomas More Attorneys on December 17, 2018, with the Illinois Supreme Court in Springfield Right to Life et al v. Norwood et al here.