Illinois assisted suicide law takes effect Sept. 12 as Catholics offer resources, pursue legal challenges

Illinois’ new assisted suicide law is set to take effect Sept. 12, allowing terminally ill adults to obtain prescription medication to end their lives, and Catholic leaders are providing resources on end-of-life care and challenging parts of the law in federal court.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act” on Dec. 12, 2025, making Illinois the first Midwestern state to permit the practice. 

Under the law, an eligible patient must be at least 18 years old, live in Illinois, have the mental capacity to make medical decisions, and have an illness that two physicians have determined is likely to cause death within six months. The patient must personally make oral and written requests for the medication and be physically capable of taking it without assistance. 

Catholic plaintiffs argue that the law would force them to discuss the purported benefits of assisted suicide, refer patients to providers who support and participate in it, and allow their employees to help patients obtain the lethal drugs. 

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and Illinois pharmacist James Giovino filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 3 challenging those requirements, as Zeale News previously reported. 

Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four Catholic physicians are also seeking to block the law. The state agreed on Aug. 21 to a federal court order temporarily preventing Illinois from enforcing the challenged provisions against those plaintiffs as their lawsuit continues.

Another lawsuit brought by disability-rights advocates sought to stop the entire law from taking effect, arguing that it could expose disabled patients to coercion and unequal treatment. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. declined Sept. 10 to issue a preliminary injunction, finding that the plaintiffs had not established an imminent injury tied to the law. 

Bishops offer resources on end-of-life care, warn of law’s risks

As the law takes effect, the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI) has launched an online collection of materials titled “Compassion + Care, Now and at the Hour of Our Death.” 

Released at the request of the state’s bishops, the collection includes Catholic talking points on assisted suicide, frequently asked questions about hospice and palliative care, a novena, guidance on advance health care directives, and the Illinois bishops’ pastoral letter on end-of-life care. 

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the CCI, said the bishops hope the resources will encourage Catholics to discuss death, dying, and Church teaching on assisted suicide before confronting a health crisis, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago’s newspaper, the Chicago Catholic.

He also warned that Illinois could gradually weaken protections for people nearing the end of their lives, pointing to how assisted suicide policies have expanded elsewhere. The bishops have also raised concerns that financial incentives could hurt patient care if insurance companies choose to cover less expensive lethal drugs rather than more expensive treatments for terminally ill patients.

“It’s just rife with a lot of problems, and unfortunately, the General Assembly wasn’t very interested in trying to put more safeguards in,” Gilligan said, according to the newspaper. “We tried, but they weren’t.”

Auxiliary Bishop Larry Sullivan, vicar general for the Archdiocese of Chicago, said the law could reinforce a false cultural message that people who are seriously ill have become burdens on their families. 

“One of the things we have to really remember is that we are not a burden to family and to friends,” the bishop said, according to the Chicago Catholic. “In many ways, we are a blessing. Unfortunately, our society, our culture, is telling people, ‘You don’t want to be a burden.’”

The law could also present new pastoral difficulties for priests called to administer Last Rites to someone preparing to take assisted suicide drugs, according to Bishop Sullivan.

“It’s going to put the priest in an awkward position because you cannot forgive a sin that has not yet been committed,” he said, according to the Chicago Catholic. “We don’t want people to think that we are giving permission for something that we don’t have the right or the ability to give permission for. But in a pastoral sense, that could be seen as cruel. I’m not looking to deprive anybody of the sacraments. What I’m saying is that the priests will now have to go in there with a litany of questions that they are forced to ask that puts all parties in a terrible bind.”

The bishops are particularly encouraging Illinois residents to complete an advance health care directive and designate someone they trust to make medical decisions if they can no longer speak for themselves.