Gov. J.B. Pritzker will speak about the fight for abortion rights alongside former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York on Tuesday.
The Clinton Global Initiative panel, called “Women’s Rights are Human Rights: How to Provide Abortion Care in a Post-Dobbs World,” also includes Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and model and philanthropist Karlie Kloss. The event will be livestreamed at 1:30 p.m.
The panel is part of a two-day Clinton Global Initiative annual event, which returned last year after a six-year break. The Associated Press on Monday reported the initiative is set to launch a network to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians with several financial pledges expected to be announced Tuesday.
Pritzker and Clinton are longtime friends, and Pritzker served as a fundraiser and adviser to Clinton during her 2016 presidential run.
The expansion of abortion rights in Illinois has put Pritzker in the national spotlight — and it became a huge focal point during his 2022 campaign for reelection. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Pritzker and the Democrat-led General Assembly have further expanded abortion rights in Illinois, as they seek to create a safe haven for patients traveling from states that have banned abortions, including neighboring Missouri and Indiana.
An Iowa district judge on July 17 temporarily blocked a ban on abortions after about six weeks. Patients have also been flooding in from Wisconsin, where abortions were banned in June 2022. But a judge’s ruling last month that a state law doesn’t apply to medical abortions led Planned Parenthood to resume abortion services Monday.
The Democratic governor has ramped up his travels this year. In January, he flew to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, where he promoted Illinois achievements alongside Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change.
Pritzker also spent seven days in the United Kingdom in July, a trip aimed at advancing the state’s economic development goals, including in clean energy and technology.
The governor arrived in New York Monday and is expected to return to Chicago Tuesday night, according to the governor’s office.
