CHICAGO (BP) — A group of medical and religious plaintiffs are temporarily exempt from complying with Illinois’ assisted suicide law that takes effect Sept. 12, having won a restraining order against the law that also faces other legal challenges.
Temporarily exempt are a group of plaintiffs represented by the Thomas More Society, including four physicians, the Lutheran Care Center and hospitals operated by the Catholic Diocese of Springfield.
Otherwise, the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act requires physicians to tell patients about perceived benefits of ending their own lives, refer them to someone willing to prescribe the legal drugs which patients would administer themselves, and conceal the suicide on death certificates, among other requirements. Generally, patients must be diagnosed with a terminal illness and expected to die within six months.
The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has decried such laws that, with Illinois, are on the books in 13 states and the District of Columbia.
“While it would be far more preferable that the governor had never signed this bill into law in the first place,” ERLC President Evan Lenow told Baptist Press, “we are relieved that the state of Illinois has rightly agreed that doctors and ministries should not be forced to offer provider-sponsored murder as a viable medical option.
“This is a commonsense and longstanding protection, that medical providers and healthcare ministry workers should not be required to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs in their provision of care,” Lenow said. “We’re hopeful that as this case proceeds, more Illinois providers are rightly afforded the protection to not transgress their consciences and spared the requirement to recommend this heinous practice to their patients.”
In addition to the Thomas More case that is ongoing, the Illinois law faces a legal challenge from the Chicago Catholic Diocese, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and a Morrison-area Catholic pharmacist. Becket, a pro-bono religious liberty law firm, filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 3 on behalf of the clients.
“Illinois makes religious healthcare providers punch the patient’s ticket to death even when doing so violates their faith,” Becket said in its case summary. “The law does not merely permit assisted suicide. It forces objecting healthcare providers into its machinery.”
In addition to Illinois and D.C., physician assisted suicide – or medical aid in dying – is legal in California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Sixteen other states have considered or are considering such legislation this year, the pro-medical-aid-in-dying tracking site Death with Dignity reported.
The presentation of assisted suicide as merciful is deceitful, Lenow said.
“Physician-assisted suicide is framed deceptively as merciful, often called by a number of other monikers instead of what it actually is: the purposeful killing of people who are suffering,” he said. “No one is denying that it is terribly challenging for individuals and families to decide how to medically proceed in the face of terminal illness, disability, or mental health challenges.
“This often leads to complex conversations about when to take someone off a ventilator, how to treat a patient whose condition cannot be cured, or how to ensure a person retains a high quality of life as they receive palliative care,” Lenow said. “But regardless of the malady, the answer is never to prematurely end someone’s life, every moment of which God has deemed significant.”
In Oregon, where voters led the way nationally in approving a Death with Dignity Act in November 1994, legal challenges delayed the law’s implementation until 1997. In 2025 alone, the Oregon Health Authority reported, 637 patients received related prescriptions and of those, 400 ingested the medications and died that year, including 42 who had received prescriptions in previous years.
Most, 88 percent of the 400, were 65 or older and suffering cancer (61 percent), OHA reported.
In California, the most populous state in the union with the U.S. Census Bureau reporting 39.3 million residents, 1,839 individuals received prescriptions under the state’s End of Life Act, among whom 1,235 ingested the medications and died, the California Department of Public Health reported.
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