Will County Gazette

Senate Republican Deputy Leader Sue Rezin (R-Morris) recently voiced her opposition to changes to the Health Care Right of Conscience Act.

On Nov. 8 Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed SB1169 into law which will amend the Health Care Right of Conscience Act to say that it is not a violation of the act for any person or public official, or for any public or private association, agency, corporation, entity, institution, or employer to take any measures or impose any requirements intended to prevent contraction or transmission of COVID-19 or any pathogens that result in COVID-19 or any of its subsequent iterations.

Rezin spoke out on the Senate floor and said that this bill did not have her support nor the support of her constituents.

"Over the course of this bill, I would say for the last week we had 7,000 people [submit] slip[s] in opposition to Amendment 1," Rezin said on the Senate floor. "We had over 54,000 [submitted] slip[s] in opposition of Amendment 2 which is very similar to Amendment 3 that we're discussing here today. In the past 24 hours, we've had over 22,000 people [submit] slip[s] in opposition to Amendment 3. If you want to know what that looks like, we've printed the opposition slips out here. This is what it looks like. Since I've been here and probably I would say for the last decade, this is the bill that has had the most people [submit] slip[s] in opposition to a bill. There are concerns around the state that people are not being heard, that their rights are being taken away from them." 

On Nov. 5, after the Senate passed SB1169, Rezin condemned the decision to pass the bill despite the amount of public opposition it was receiving. 

“In the last couple of days more than 52,000 Illinoisans took time out of their day to file witness slips in opposition of the Democrats’ proposed amendment to the Health Care Right of Conscience Act," Rezin said according to a press release.

“They did this because they believe in a representative government and hoped that their voices would not be ignored. Yet, despite their efforts, the Majority party chose to ignore them. They chose to ignore the will of the people of our state because the Governor demanded changes to an incredibly important law designed to protect every Illinoisan’s strongly held religious and moral principles.”

Rezin also opposes House Bill 370 which would repeal the state’s Parental Notification of Abortion (PNA) act and House Bill 1291 which proposes new legislative district maps, according to a press release.