In last night’s Illinois Primary, pro-abortion Republican Governor Bruce Rauner defeated a pro-life legislator who was challenging him primarily over his support for abortion.
Rauner pulled off a narrow victory over his state legislator challenger. He defeated pro-life state Rep. Jeanne Ives to secure the GOP nomination for a second term, pitting him against Democrat J.B. Pritzker this fall, a billionaire venture capitalist who won 46 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary to five other candidates.
Rauner was opposed by pro-life advocates because he signed into law a bill that mandates taxpayer funding of abortion through the state’s Medicaid program months after stating he would oppose it.
SBA List’s National Campaign Chair Jill Stanek, an Illinois resident and an international pro-life activist, said “When Rauner flip-flopped on forcing taxpayers to fund abortion on demand, he condemned as many as 3,800 innocent unborn children with the stroke of a pen.”
Ives campaigned hard on the issue. Her campaign released a radio ad attacking the Republican governor’s pro-abortion record. It followed a TV ad, which similarly highlighted Rauner’s support of taxpayer-funded abortions.
“Rauner made you pay for abortions in all nine months of pregnancy,” Ives aid in the ad. “I voted against it — and so did every other Republican legislator.”
The 2017 law keeps abortion on demand legal in Illinois and establishes the Land of Lincoln as a “safe haven” for women seeking abortions. The law also forces taxpayers in the already cash-strapped state to pay for abortions for late-term abortions and for any reason.
Rauner widely was criticized for signing the pro-abortion law. He recently was named the “worst Republican governor in America” for his betrayal.
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Emily Troscinski, executive director of Illinois Right To Life, previously said the state once funded unrestricted abortions through Medicaid in the late 1970s, and taxpayers paid about $1.8 million for about 12,738 unborn babies’ abortion deaths at the time.
She predicted that state taxpayers will be forced to pay for as many as 12,000 unborn babies’ abortion deaths annually because of the legislation.
