Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Punches Back to Protect Women

Public colleges in Illinois will now provide contraception and medication abortion, thanks to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's ongoing fight to protect women's rights.

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Public colleges in Illinois will now provide contraception and medication abortion, thanks to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's ongoing fight to protect women’s rights.

“I made a promise to the women of Illinois — as governor, I will ensure your medical decisions will be your own. Now, we continue fulfilling that promise. Public colleges will now provide contraception and medication abortion at on-campus pharmacies and student health centers,” the Democrat wrote on BlueSky.

Supporting abortion rights isn’t new to Pritzker and it’s also not performative. The Democratic Governor used his own money and campaign staffers to launch a national bid to protect abortion rights.

“Gov. J.B. Pritzker has created Think Big America, a tax-exempt nonprofit that will spend money and resources to protect and expand abortion rights throughout the country,” the Chicago Sun Times reported in October of 2023.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is dipping into his deep pockets and political resources to create an organization to combat anti-abortion efforts across the country.

With Illinois already viewed as a safe haven for those seeking abortions, Pritzker has launched Think Big America, a tax-exempt issue advocacy nonprofit organization aimed at protecting and expanding abortion rights in other states.

This group is not required to disclose its donors, turning the toxic use of “dark money” into what might be seen as a resistance tactic against the rampant power of dark money in our politics. But it has also raised questions in the past about an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune having a problematic advantage because he could use his own money to “personally finance the renovation of state buildings and supplement the salaries of a handful of close aides.”

This is where the left has often met its reflection and chosen to go high, being well aware that it wants to avoid becoming what it’s fighting against.

But then, Donald Trump 2.0, implementing Project 2025 at warp speed, changed everything.

Donald Trump has changed that calculation, and Democratic Governors like California’s Gavin Newsom are making sure the corporate media eats its own pearl-clutching by trolling them into scolding his imitation of Trump for behavior over which they have not scolded Trump. Behavior they have shrugged and referred to as his “personality,” for example, as if that makes it unnewsworthy and irrelevant.

It’s been a true sight to behold how truly caught up in their own previously impenetrable towers of sanctimony they are, so much so that they don’t see the trap coming.

Over and over and over again.

But Pritzker saw Trump coming. A billionaire himself (and unlike a certain convicted felon, he got there without using the White House to scam people), J.B. Pritzker is not the typical Democrat.

In November of 2024 along with Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Pritzker formed a coalition of governors to fight against the “increasing threats of autocracy.”

The Governors Safeguarding Democracy (GSD) was formed to use their collective and collaborative powers to protect state-level institutions of democracy, which it turned out was going to be needed as the nation was forced to drink from the firehose of Trump’s criminal chaos and Elon Musk’s adolescent (and reportedly drug-fueled) attacks on the United States of America’s institutions.

The Chicago Sun Times reported in November of 2024:

“It’s built off a model that all of us governors have already successfully pioneered through the Reproductive Freedom Alliance,” Pritzker said. “And together, what we’re doing is pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy that our country and our states depend on.”

It was governors (and you, The People) who pushed Senate Democrats to find a spine and a purpose in standing up against some of Trump’s cabinet nominees, for example.

Pritzker has spread his wealth around for causes he believes in. He previously contributed (via Chicago Sun Times, but with editing for brevity) $250,000 to the Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom PAC, $201,000 in support of Kansas’ abortion amendment, $1 million to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, $20,000 directly to support a Milwaukee County judge “who won her Wisconsin Supreme Court justice seat and flipped control of the court to give liberals a 4-3 majority.”

Democratic Governors, many of whom are likely hopeful of becoming the party’s 2028 presidential candidate, have been working together to be on offense behind the scenes since 2024, with ABC News reporting:

At the Beverly Hilton over the weekend, the tight-knit group of Democratic talent -- many of whom will be some of the strongest detractors of Trump's policies and also some of the best-positioned to be at the top of the party's presidential ticket in 2028 -- gathered for private, closed-door meetings with one another, donors and other stakeholders. The group of about 18 governors and governors-elect, hosted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, focused on how to navigate through Trump's leadership, according to several who spoke with ABC News, rather than any significant post-election analysis following the Democrats' losses last month.

Democratic Attorney Generals are doing a lot of heavy lifting themselves. (Remember, without your activism and involvement in every election, some of these Democratic AGs would not be in office.) Twenty-three Democratic state attorneys general meet daily for a 30 minute confidential video chat “to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration.”

They, too, saw Trump coming and prepared. They are “executing on a plan they worked to develop for a year before Trump’s return to the White House, according to interviews with more than half of the Democratic attorneys general, former holders of the office and their staff. Coming together to respond to Trump’s policy blitzkrieg after it began, they say, would have represented coming together too late.”

The AP’s lawsuit tracker (Partially or fully blocked 121, Court left in effect 77, Pending 91) shows how important legal fights are in challenging Trump’s autocratic takeover:

Ironically, abortions have increased nationally since the Republicans orchestrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade out of what they claimed was a concern for the “unborn” but most notably this concern does not extend to care for the health of pregnant mothers or the feeding of babies once they are born.

The immorality of Republicans’ “pro-life” stance has become increasingly hard to justify, as women die horrifically painful deaths due to “pro-life” policies enacted with great smugness by a party dominated by white men and women who often figure out too late that their party actually does not respect them at all.

Gov. Pritzker is making abortion care available and easy to get for women, because abortion care is healthcare and it is a human right. Pritzker is turning conservatives’ use of federalism around, and showing how it can be used to protect rights just as it has been historically used to take them away.

What do you think about Gov. Pritzker using his power to protect rights? Join the conversation in the comments below.