Catholic bishop and religious healthcare providers sue Illinois over assisted suicide law

Religious healthcare providers in Illinois filed a federal lawsuit Aug. 11 seeking to block provisions of a new state law they say would violate their faith by requiring them to promote or facilitate assisted suicide.

Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four Catholic physicians are challenging Illinois’ End-of-Life Options Act, according to an Aug. 11 press release from the Thomas More Society, which represents them. Scheduled to take effect Sept. 12, the law permits doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill adults.

In an Aug. 11 federal complaint, the plantiffs argue that the law would force them to discuss the purported benefits of assisted suicide, refer patients to assisted suicide-participating providers, and allow their employees to help patients pursue it.

The Thomas More Society said providers who refuse to comply could face fines of up to $10,000, professional sanctions, or criminal prosecution.

Bishop Paprocki said the law would interfere with the Church’s ministry to the sick and dying.

“At the heart of the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry is the healing work of Christ,” he said, “to stand with the suffering, to comfort the dying, and to affirm the God-given dignity of every human life.”

Even if a religious healthcare institution opposes assisted suicide, the law would prevent it from disciplining employees who promote the practice at work or help patients obtain lethal drugs elsewhere, according to the complaint.

The physician plaintiffs are oncologists Drs. Michal Porubcin and Michael Hawking and rehabilitation specialists Drs. Mary Keen Kirchoff and Brian Couri.

Keen said in the release that the state’s requirements violate her Catholic convictions and her duty as a physician.

“As a doctor,” she said, “I have a responsibility to meet my patients’ existential pain with loving accompaniment, not with abandonment.”

The law also requires death certificates to attribute a patient’s death to the underlying terminal illness without noting the use of physician-prescribed lethal drugs. The plaintiffs argue that the requirement would conceal how the patient died.

The lawsuit comes just days after a federal judge temporarily barred New York from enforcing similar assisted suicide requirements against several Catholic healthcare ministries while their religious liberty challenge proceeds, as Zeale News previously reported.

According to the Thomas More Society, the plaintiffs plan to seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction before the law takes effect.