This session Daniel Biss, State Senator from Evanston, whose 9th District includes communities in the 10th Congressional District, is sponsoring Senate Bill 1564 to amend the Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The changes Biss’s bill proposes would ensure that healthcare providers give medically accurate information to their patients, regardless of their own personal religious beliefs.
Sen. Biss explains why such legislation is needed. “Across the country, we’re watching state legislatures enact heavy-handed legislation that aims at limiting a woman’s right to choose,” he says. “Right-wing Republicans have tried those same tricks here in Illinois, but fortunately we’ve been able to defeat these proposals, allowing women to make the choices that are right for them and their families.”
According to Biss, Senate Bill 1564 represents an important opportunity not just to stop awful legislation, but also to affirmatively expand women’s rights. The bill would protect not only family-planning decisions, but also such other important, intimate healthcare decisions as end-of-life care directions. Biss believes that everyone “should be free to make those decisions based on medically accurate and comprehensive information,” guided by their “own beliefs and not those of doctors or hospital systems.”