Springfield state lawmakers are absolutely tone deaf. Can you believe that another Leftist has introduced yet another bill to make your private health records public when they are, and should remain, absolutely private?

A little more than a week ago State Representative Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park), introduced HB 4640, the Access to Public Health Data Act. This proposal would:

“make any and all public health data related to residents of that local health department’s jurisdiction available to that local health department for the purposes of preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.”

The bill also states that:

“…the Department of Public Health, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Children and Family Services may adopt any rules necessary to implement the Act.”

In other words, your private medical records would be made available to other agencies for “the purposes of preventing or controlling disease…”. Sound familiar?

We have repeatedly seen attempts to do away with the protection and privacy of personal medical information. Just last week Illinois residents flooded the Illinois General Assembly with opposition to a similar bill, HB 4244, which would have created a vaccine registry through the Department of Public Health. HB 4640 would include “any and all public health data” including vaccine records.

HB 4640 has been assigned to the Human Services Committee and is scheduled for a hearing this Wednesday, February 2, 2022, at 9:00 AM. Please take a minute to file a witness slip in opposition.

Take Action: Please click HERE to file a witness slip in opposition to HB 4640.

-Fill out your name, address, email and phone number. Leave everything else blank or put self.
-Highlight “Opponent” and “Record of Appearance Only.”
-Check Terms of Agreement and click Create Slip.

Please click HERE to urge your state representative to oppose HB 4640. Ask “why” they suddenly need this information and “how” they plan on using it in the future. Point out that this is a huge overreach of government and will only foster distrust in public health.

Thousands of children are alive today because pro-life sidewalk counselors stand outside abortion clinics offering encouragement and information about the abortion alternatives to pregnant mothers. It is one of the most effective ways to save the unborn. New legislation, however, threatens this vital work. Chicago state lawmakers have introduced HB 3735 which would essentially create a censorship zone around abortion clinics.

Using subjective and broad language, the bill says counselors who are convicted of “intimidation” against pregnant mothers and staff members entering the abortion clinic, will be subject to longer prison stays and/or fines. Sponsored by State Representatives Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park), Silvana Tabares (D-Chicago), Greg Harris (D-Chicago), and John D’Amico (D-Chicago), HB 3735 adds acts of intimidation and violence in the vicinity of abortion clinics to the list of aggravating factors in the criminal code. An aggravating factor is a fact or circumstance that increases the severity or culpability of the criminal act. If this bill were to pass, people accused of intimidation will receive harsher sentences simply because they were near an abortion clinic.

This bill is problematic in several ways.

First, the crimes of harassment and violent actions which the bill claims to prevent are already covered under the criminal code. Creating a special zone for harsher penalties around abortion clinics is clearly meant to intimidate pro-life sidewalk counselors.

Second, this bill seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. There is no evidence that people are being harassed while walking into abortion clinics by sidewalk counselors or anyone else.

Third, the bill raises multiple free speech issues. The U.S. Supreme Court has already held in McCullen v. Coakley that buffer zones preventing sidewalk counselors from coming near an abortion clinic entrance unconstitutionally restrict free speech. It is unclear whether HB 3537 is broad enough to protect the free speech rights of those sidewalk counselors. This bill may also be unconstitutionally aimed to restrict pro-life speech over other forms of speech.

Finally, the bill specifically mentions abortion clinic staff members as receiving this special protection. One can easily foresee abortion clinic staff using such a law to intimidate and silence pro-life counselors and to justify reporting them to the police when no harassment or violent actions have been perpetrated.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state representative to tell him or her that HB 3735 is unnecessary and jeopardizes both free speech and the lifesaving work of sidewalk counseling. Then politely urge your representative to vote NO on HB 3735.

IFI Forums: Climate Change & the Christian

Join us during the last week of April as we have Dr. Calvin Beisner, the founder & national spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation discuss the Christian responsibility to the environment as we learn how to discern truth and myth in the climate change controversy.

April 25th in Rockford
April 26th in Arlington Heights
April 27th in Orland Park
April 28th in Peoria

Click HERE to learn more!