Lake Villa trustee looks to unseat McHenry senator who says Illinois goes too far on abortion

A Lake Villa trustee looking to unseat a Republican in the state Senate said she was motivated to run after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Attorney Allena Barbato is running in the 32nd District against state Sen. Craig Wilcox, a former Air Force colonel and McHenry County Board member who was appointed to the Senate seat in 2018 and won election two years later.

The district, redrawn in the wake of the 2020 census, represents parts of northern Lake and McHenry counties, including Cary, Woodstock, McHenry, Johnsburg, Fox Lake, Lake Villa and Antioch.

Wilcox said he is staunchly anti-abortion with a few exceptions.

"Had abortion remained safe, legal and relatively rare - that was the goal 50 years ago - we would not have seen Roe v. Wade change," Wilcox said. "But in Illinois, we allow abortion up until birth."

As of 2020, 58% of abortions in Illinois took place during the first eight weeks of pregnancy and 85% by week 11, Illinois Department of Public Health data shows.

Barbato, whose candidacy was possible after an uncontested Democratic primary in April, said Illinois must maintain its robust abortion protections.

"We know from our history that not providing for safe, legal abortion leads to women dying," Barbato said. "We decided long ago that women should have access to abortions if they needed them. My mom's generation, grandmother's generation, they fought for this right."

Barbato said she has heard from many in McHenry County who were unhappy with the Supreme Court's decision and now feel empowered to take action.

Barbato described herself as a "fighter" and said her background included a wartime experience as a child during Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Wilcox said while there were certain scenarios in which abortion may be justified, Illinois and the country at large had moved far beyond those limitations and that a majority of abortions are not due to incest or rape, but rather "personal choices."

Barbato said it shouldn't be up to legislators to parse through whether individual abortions should take place and said there was "no easy answer" on more controversial aspects of Illinois abortion law, such as the lifting of parental notification.

She said also she supported the measures in Illinois to provide support to out-of-state women seeking abortions.

"We can't sit here and work up all the different scenarios that can play out in someone's life," Barbato said. "The best thing we can do, as legislators, is to appreciate the complexity and fragility of people's lives, and do what it takes to protect people's health and safety."

Wilcox pointed to the case against a Chicago educator who is accused of sexually abusing a teen, taking her to get an abortion and faking her stepfather's signature on consent forms.

"Without parental notification, he could have done that 100 more times without getting caught," Wilcox said. "When we go to extremes, we open the door even more."

Despite his strong anti-abortion stance, Wilcox said that "the reality is the Supreme Court decision changes nothing in Illinois." He added that he sees his role within the minority Republican Party as trying to limit how much taxpayer money is appropriated to abortion.

"It is a moral discussion, for the most part," Wilcox said. "To me, that is the challenge."