The following was published as a Letter to the Editor in the Chicago Tribune on February 18, 2026. It is reproduced below.

Abortion referral mandate

Illinois has until Friday to answer for a law that violates the conscience rights of physicians and pregnancy centers across the state or risk losing federal health care funding. That is not a hypothetical. It is an ultimatum from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the clock is running out.

HHS’ Office for Civil Rights issued a finding that Illinois’ abortion referral mandate — which forces physicians who object to abortion and pregnancy centers to provide women with information on abortion providers, even when doing so violates their deeply held religious beliefs — conflicts with federal law.

Specifically, HHS concluded that it violates the Weldon and Coats-Snowe Amendments, which for many years have prohibited states that receive federal funds from coercing health care professionals and organizations to facilitate or refer for abortion. Thomas More Society filed the complaint on behalf of pregnancy centers and physicians who cannot in good conscience comply.

Consider what this mandate demands in practice. Pasha Bohlen, a nurse who has spent over 17 years counseling women at Pregnancy Aid South Suburbs, has witnessed firsthand the moments that change lives: a mother seeing her child’s heartbeat for the first time or a young woman choosing life after learning what resources are available to her.

Under Illinois’ referral mandate, Bohlen could be forced to hand the very women she serves a referral to an abortion provider. But for Bohlen and hundreds of professionals like her, referral is not a neutral act; it is direct participation in what they believe to be a grave moral wrong.

This is not the only time Illinois has tried to conscript professionals who object to abortion into the service of its own abortion agenda. Last April, a federal court struck down the state’s effort to force pregnancy centers like Bohlen’s to recite the so-called benefits of abortion to their patients.

Yet even as a judge blocked this compelled-speech scheme, the abortion referral mandate was left intact, creating an unresolved constitutional conflict. We are now challenging it on appeal before the Seventh Circuit.

While Illinois’ elected officials are entitled to their own views on abortion, they are not entitled to trample the conscience rights of religious and anti-abortion Illinoisans.

Illinois has an opportunity to correct course by responding before Friday and agreeing to respect the conscience rights of health care professionals and life-affirming pregnancy centers.

— Thomas Olp, Executive Vice President, Thomas More Society