Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Signs ‘Dangerous’ Euthanasia Bill Into Law
Illinois Governor Jay Robert “JB” Pritzker signed a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide into law on Friday. The decision makes the Land of Lincoln the 12th state to legalize euthanasia.
The Illinois Senate passed the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (SB 1950) in the dead of night on Halloween by the bare minimum of votes (30-27). The Illinois House had approved the bill on May 29 in a 63-42 vote.
The law legalizes physician-assisted suicide for adults who have a terminal disease with a prognosis of six months or less to live. It will take effect in September 2026.
Eleven other states – California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington – and the District of Columbia have legalized physician-assisted suicide. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering signing a bill to legalize euthanasia in her state.
In a statement, Gov. Pritzker said the legislation will help patients “avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives” and will be “thoughtfully implemented so that physicians can consult patients on making deeply personal decisions with authority, autonomy, and empathy.”
Just days earlier, the Jewish governor had met with Pope Leo XIV, a native Chicagoan. The Vatican didn’t release any details about what was discussed during the visit, the Catholic News Agency reports, though the governor later said he and the pontiff discussed immigration.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois, which speaks for the Catholic bishops in the state, denounced the governor’s decision in a statement released on Dec. 12.
“When Governor Pritzker signed the physician assisted suicide bill into law, he put Illinois on a dangerous and heartbreaking path – one that legitimizes suicide as a valid solution for life’s challenges,” the conference warned.
“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 Thomas More Society, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, lamented that Illinois politicians have “crossed a profound moral and legal red line” by legalizing physician-assisted suicide.
“This is a dark and sorrowful day for Illinois,” said Thomas Olp, executive vice president at Thomas More Society, in a statement. “Instead of offering true compassion, support, and care, this law offers a fatal prescription. That is not mercy. It is abandonment.”
The organization forewarned the new law threatens physicians who are morally opposed to facilitating an assisted suicide. The bill “requires physicians who object to assisted suicide on moral or religious grounds to refer patients to providers who will participate in ending their lives.”
This “compelled-referral mandate” is “unconscionable coercion, plain and simple,” Olp emphasized. “No doctor should be ordered by the government to participate directly or indirectly in a process that deliberately ends a human life.”
Furthermore, the law forces “religious hospitals and clinics to retain staff who promote assisted deaths on-site, as long as those staff provide lethal drugs off-site.”
Bishop Robert Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, posted a video on X addressing the topic of physician-assisted suicide one day after Gov. Pritzker signed the legislation.
Sixty years ago, conservative writer and intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review. Part of its mission, Buckley wrote, was to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
That reality applies just as much to modern conservatives, weary that far-Left individuals and states have never found a bad idea they didn’t like – such as killing people, both the preborn and the terminally ill.
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh recently warned that euthanasia is “spreading like a cancer” across Western civilizations.
Christians and conservatives should keep these six points in mind when considering the grave problems with physician-assisted suicide:
- Euthanasia always violates a person’s inviolable dignity as a human being made in the image and likeness of God, the Imago Dei.
- Physician-assisted suicide is not an “individual choice,” nor is it a “personal” decision. It always involves one person killing another person – either actively or passively.
- Euthanasia violates the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm,” turning physicians into dealers of death.
- Physician-assisted suicide is essentially never necessary to reduce a terminally ill patient’s suffering, thanks to great improvements in palliative care and hospice.
- Many patients choose physician-assisted suicide primarily to avoid “being a burden to others” or because of depression; suicide is never the answer to these problems.
- Euthanasia opens the door to involuntary killings to manage health-care costs, transforming the so-called “right to die” into a “duty to die.”
As euthanasia continues to expand into more states, we must all-the-more fiercely advocate for every person’s inalienable right to life.
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Related articles and resources:
Counseling Consultation & Referrals
A Godly Perspective on End-of-Life Decisions
Understanding God’s Plan for the End of Life
Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide
The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide
Aging Loved Ones and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Illinois Senate Passes ‘Tragic’ Bill to Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide
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