Briel-Backed Resolution Opposes Extreme Anti-Choice Senate Bill

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – State Rep. Amy “Murri” Briel, D-Ottawa, helped pass a formal resolution Wednesday opposing a Republican bill introduced last week to the Illinois State Senate, seeking to classify reproductive healthcare services—including in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments—as capital murder.

“It’s outright shameful that an elected official—in the People's House—would publicly advocate for a measure that classifies women and girls, mothers and fathers trying to conceive, and survivors of rape or incest, as murderers,” said Briel. “No woman should ever face backlash for making decisions about their own reproductive health—nevermind, be subject to the death penalty for exercising basic bodily autonomy. I’m truly shocked at the lack of empathy towards women and families attempting to have children, especially coming from the party of ‘family values.’ It’s more than clear that those values were never the real priority of a party that, from the local to the national level, continues to dismantle basic human rights for female citizens at every opportunity.”

Senate Bill 3572 would severely punish women seeking reproductive healthcare, specifically abortion services, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The legislation states that all embryos and fertilized eggs would be considered human beings in the eyes of the law. Thus, under this bill, abortion and IVF treatments would be labeled as murder, and the subsequent penalties for women and medical professionals would be harsher than the penalties for rapists and abusers.

This extremist bill would go so far as to make receiving reproductive healthcare services punishable by death—which would bring the death penalty back to Illinois after over a quarter century.

Briel-backed House Resolution 695 vehemently opposes Senate Bill 3572, reaffirming support for survivors of rape and incest, parents trying to start a family, and any and all women seeking legal reproductive healthcare, for any reason, in Illinois. The resolution also highlights similar legislation made legal in Alabama in 2024, where anti-choice Republicans nationwide remarked that IVF would be protected—indicating that extremist bills like Senate Bill 3572 would never be supported within their party.