CNA Staff, Dec 12, 2025 / 16:52 pm
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law an assisted suicide bill that Catholic leaders have ardently opposed.
Pritzker, who met with Pope Leo XIV on Nov. 19, cited “freedom,” “choice,” and “autonomy” as his reasons for signing the bill, which allows doctors to give terminally ill patients life-ending drugs if they request them. According to the law, patients must be mentally capable and have a prognosis of six months or less to live.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and other Illinois bishops had urged Pritzker to veto the bill. The Catholic Conference of Illinois, which speaks for the Catholic bishops in the state, condemned the law, calling it a “dangerous and heartbreaking path.”
Other jurisdictions with assisted suicide laws include: California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. The Illinois law, Pritzker said in a Dec. 12 statement, “enables patients faced with debilitating terminal illnesses to make a decision, in consultation with a doctor, that helps them avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives.”
Pritzker said he was “deeply impacted” by stories of the suffering of terminally ill patients and their families who argued in favor of the bill.
“I have been moved by their dedication to standing up for freedom and choice at the end of life in the midst of personal heartbreak,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker signed the measure into law on the beloved feast day for Catholics in North America of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is known as the patroness of the pro-life movement.
Concerns for the vulnerable
Opponents of assisted suicide say that assisted suicide is not “true compassion” and constitutes “abandonment” of patients in need of care.
“This law ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois’ statement. “It does nothing to ensure patients are offered services, protected from coercion, or surrounded by loved ones when they kill themselves.”
“Rather than investing in real end-of-life support such as palliative and hospice care, pain management, and family-centered accompaniment, our state has chosen to normalize killing oneself,” the statement continued.
The conference called the passage “alarming,” saying that “by enacting this law, Illinois is endorsing the death option while claiming compassion.”
Matt Vallière, who heads the Patients Rights’ Action Fund, said that by signing the bill, Pritzker “has endangered the rights and lives of vulnerable patients.”
The Patients Rights’ Action Fund opposes assisted suicide, saying it is discriminatory against patients with terminally-ill diagnoses.
“By signing the bill to legalize assisted suicide, he has cracked the ice beneath patients whose care is already fragile,” Vallière said in a statement shared with CNA.
“Assisted suicide plunges Illinoisans with disabilities and other vulnerable people into conversations about death instead of the care and support they deserve from their medical teams,” Vallière said.
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Thomas Olp — a spokesman for Thomas More Society, a Catholic law firm defending life and family — said the law “places vulnerable lives at risk.”
“When the state signals that some lives are no longer worth living, the most vulnerable pay the price,” Olp said in a statement shared with CNA.
“State law should never endorse the idea that suffering or sickness makes a life disposable,” he continued.
“Instead of offering true compassion, support, and care, this law offers a fatal prescription,” Olp concluded. “That is not mercy. It is abandonment.”
Cultural effect
The Catholic Conference of Illinois raised concerns about the cultural implications of legalizing a form of suicide.
“This message will be heard by vulnerable groups not as a balm for the dying but as a societally acceptable alternative to living,” the conference said.
“Indeed, studies show that where assisted suicide has been made legal, the number of all suicides has risen,” the conference statement continued. “How can we urge teens and young adults — knowing suicide is the second-leading cause of death in their age group — not to choose death, while our own laws say that suicide can be a ‘medical option’?”
“We may fund suicide prevention hotlines, expand suicide prevention programs, and train communities, but those efforts are hollow when we are simultaneously signaling that some lives are too burdensome or too expensive to save,” the statement continued. “Can we depend on distressed youth and others to understand the difference between their pain and that of the dying?”
Conscience rights concerns
Olp, whose law firm helps defend conscience rights, said the new law “erodes the foundational conscience rights of medical professionals and religious medical practices.”
The law requires doctors who are morally opposed to assisted suicide to refer patients to a practitioner who will provide patients with life-ending drugs.
“The state is forcing doctors to become active participants and cooperators in a patient’s suicide — no matter if their faith, ethics, or Hippocratic Oath forbid it,” Olp said.
“This is unconscionable coercion, plain and simple,” he continued. “No doctor should be ordered by the government to participate directly or indirectly in a process that deliberately ends a human life.”
“We will defend the right of every health care professional to practice medicine consistent with their conscience and oath, and we will fight any state effort to force religious health care institutions to violate their beliefs,” Olp said.
Vallière noted that the American Medical Association (AMA) continues to oppose assisted suicide, saying it is in opposition to the role of healer.
“The AMA Code of Medical Ethics continues to state that ‘Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks,’” he said.
Looking ahead
The law is set to go into effect in September 2026.
“This legislation will be thoughtfully implemented so that physicians can consult patients on making deeply personal decisions with authority, autonomy, and empathy,” Pritzker said.
Opponents said they are planning to continue defending human life.
“Gov. Pritzker and legislators who supported this legislation had a choice to build a future in which every person, especially the sick and vulnerable, is cared for with dignity, love, and support — or to open the door to a system where death becomes a permissible alternative,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois’ statement said.
“With SB 1950 now law, we must speak even more strongly that true compassion means helping people live, not helping them die,” the statement concluded.
“We urge Illinoisans, people of faith, dedicated medical professionals, and all who cherish human life to stand with us in fighting to defend the vulnerable and protect fundamental freedoms,” Olp said.
