Illinois may soon allow physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to terminally ill patients, as lawmakers advanced a measure that would legalize physician-assisted suicide.
On Friday, the Democrat-controlled Illinois Senate passed Senate Bill 1950, the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, by a 30–27 vote.
The bill now moves to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and spells out the steps required of patients with verified terminal illnesses and participating healthcare professionals to request and prescribe physician-assisted suicide.
Under the policy, a “terminal illness” is defined as an “incurable and irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, result in death within 6 months.”
The vote largely split along party lines, with eight Democrats joining all Republicans in opposition, after the Democrat-led House approved the measure 63–42 five months earlier, with five Democrats also joining GOP opponents.
The bill includes a clause indicating that "Oral and written requests for aid in dying may be made only by the patient and shall not be made by the patient's surrogate decision-maker, health care proxy, health care agent, attorney-in-fact for health care, guardian, nor via advance health care directive."
A written request must be signed “in the presence of at least 2 witnesses who attest that to the best of their knowledge and belief the patient has mental capacity, is acting voluntarily, and is not being coerced or unduly influenced to sign the request.”
The legislation also states that “a health care professional shall not be under any duty, by law or contract, to participate in the provision of aid-in-dying care to a patient as set forth in this Act.”
Condemning the bill’s passage, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Springfield said, “Make no mistake: killing oneself is not dying with dignity. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death.”
“There are documented cases of patients being denied treatment and instead offered life-ending drugs. Individuals could also be coerced into taking the legal drug. Physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities,” he stated.
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, likewise criticized the effort, insisting, “Assisted suicide is not compassion — it's abandonment,” and adding, “Illinois residents deserve laws that protect vulnerable people, not ones that pressure them toward an early death.”
