Illinois Governor JB Pritzker recently signed two bills to expand abortion in the state by making the abortion pill more accessible.
One of the new laws, HB 3709, requires public colleges and universities to offer the pill if they have a health center or on-campus pharmacy. Another law, HB 3637, expands the state’s shield law.
HB 3709 states that as of the 2025-2026 school year, “each public institution of higher education with student health services
shall provide enrolled students with access to one or more health care professionals whose scopes of practice collectively include prescribing and dispensing contraception to patients in this State.” Contraception services are to be provided through “student health services, telehealth services, or other external licensed providers.”
“Six years ago, I made a promise to the women of this state: As governor, I will ensure that your medical decisions will be your own. And we elected a General Assembly that has helped champion that endeavor. Today is another step forward in fulfilling that promise,” Pritzker said in a statement. “I’m proud to be taking these steps, but I will not rest on this. Because we know that anti-choice extremists won’t. We will continue to activate and protest and march and deliver until every woman in this state gets the health care she deserves.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a comprehensive safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone at the directive of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This decision followed a recent study by the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) which found that nearly 11% of women who used mifepristone experienced serious adverse events such as sepsis, hemorrhaging, or infection—significantly higher than the FDA’s current estimate of 0.5%.
