“For someone with terminal illness, different physicians may paint very different pictures of how things will unfold and what reasons there might be for hope,” Columba Thomas, O.P., a physician and assistant professor of medicine at Georgetown University, said in an email to America. “Even in cases that fall short of assisted suicide, patients’ risk of being swayed in one direction or another is considerable.”

It is a caution that comes too late for the people of Illinois. On Dec. 12, Gov. JB Pritzker signed the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act into law. The law allows physicians to prescribe lethal medications to mentally stable, terminally ill patients with life expectancies of six months or less. Patients who are eligible for medical assistance in dying in Illinois must be at least 18 years old, and they must provide written and oral consent. Their terminal condition must be confirmed by two physicians, according to the law.

The new law takes effect despite opposition from Catholic advocates, medical providers and disability rights groups. Father Thomas is one advocate concerned about the effects of legalizing assisted dying in the state. “Abuse and coercion can be very hard to measure in real-world situations,” he said.

The Catholic Conference of Illinois also released a statement condemning the bill: “The Illinois General Assembly has put our state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community.” The conference warned of “foreseeable tragic consequences.”

“With all the assaults on human dignity and the growing number of vulnerable people we see every day, sadly the leaders and members of the General Assembly who voted for this offer us suicide as its response,” the conference said.

The bill passed the Illinois House of Representatives 63 to 42 on May 29, and the Senate by a closer vote of 30 to 27 on Oct. 31. No Republicans voted for the bill in either chamber.

There are also accountability concerns regarding the methodology the legislature used to pass the assisted-dying bill, according to Father Thomas. He said that the Illinois House “quietly snuck it through in a ‘gut-and-replace’ maneuver,” a tactic where the legislature proposes a bill, in this case one regarding food safety, and then replaces the contents with provisions unrelated to the original topic in an effort to avoid additional committee review. 

“For a topic as weighty and controversial as this one, the American people deserve better than a last-minute swapping out of an unrelated food safety bill in exchange for assisted suicide,” Father Thomas said. “Why not give constituents the ability to discuss proposed legislation before it comes to a vote?”

The state’s Catholic conference had requested that Mr. Pritzker veto the bill in its entirety and “address humanely the reasons why some view assisted suicide as their only option.”

The Illinois bishops highlighted improving access to palliative care as a better alternative to assisted dying. The conference also argued that legalizing euthanasia increases the risk of suicide contagion, especially among young people.

“I’m concerned that the bill will ultimately direct limited resources away from hospice and palliative care,” Father Thomas said, echoing the bishops’ concerns. “We are now at a critical crossroads in trying to figure out how to make strong hospice and palliative care services available to everyone who wants them, but we are far from achieving that.”

The Catholic Church has long opposed euthanasia as part of its commitment to supporting life from conception to natural death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”

But church teaching must confront growing popular support for assisted dying among the American public. In 2024, Gallup polling found that 71 percent of Americans support euthanasia, defined as allowing doctors “by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it.” Similarly, 66 percent of Americans think “doctor-assisted suicide,” when the doctor provides terminal patients with the means to take their own life, should be legal.

Assisted dying has been legalized in many nations across the Western world, as choosing how to end one’s life has come to be seen by many as the final frontier of individual rights. Ludwig Minelli—the founder of Dignitas, a Swiss organization that promotes assisted suicide, who died by assisted suicide himself in November—told the BBC that he believed “the last human right” that societies need to implement “is the right to make a decision on one’s own end, and the possibility to have this end without risk and without pain.”

Nine European countries, Canada, Australia and others have legalized some form of the practice, according to the U.K. organization Dignity in Dying.

Illinois is the 12th U.S. state to legalize some form of assisted suicide. The practice is also legal in Washington, D.C. 

A similar bill in New York state awaits the signature of Gov. Kathy Hochul, although she has proposed additional amendments, including a seven-day waiting period before terminally ill patients can receive life-ending drugs from physicians and a requirement that all patients undergo a mental health evaluation, according to Gothamist.

Ms. Hochul, who is a Catholic, also objected to the absence of a residency requirement in the bill, which would allow people from out of state to come to New York for assisted dying.

On Dec. 17, the New York governor announced that she will sign the bill into law following the adoption of her proposed amendments by the State Legislature.

A New York-specific poll commissioned by End of Life Choice New York, an organization that supports assisted dying, found that 65 percent of Catholics in the state support the legislation.

The Illinois law requires terminal patients to be Illinois residents.

The Illinois law includes safeguards that advocates say prevent coercion and abuse. The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Linda Holmes, a Democrat, said that there are “over 20 guardrails in place” to ensure that the new law does not lead to abuse or coercion, Capitol News Illinois reported.

Some of these safeguards include requiring physicians to gauge possible patient coercion and ensuring that patients have been informed of alternatives to assisted suicide, including hospice care and pain control options, before prescribing end-of-life medication. Patients must also be able to self-administer the oral medication.

According to the legislation, medical aid in dying “complements other end-of-life options, such as comfort care, pain control, palliative care, and hospice care, for individuals to have an end-of-life experience aligned with their beliefs and values.”

The American Medical Association had joined the Catholic Conference of Illinois in opposing the bill. A statement on its website states: It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress—such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness—may come to decide that death is preferable to life. However, permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good.” The association argues that “physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”

On Nov. 14, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, released a statement commemorating the death of the former archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who helped popularize the concept of the “consistent ethic of life.” Cardinal Cupich mentioned the late prelate’s advocacy efforts against assisted suicide and asked Catholics to “honor him by rejecting all such attacks on life today.”

Editor’s Note: This report was updated on Dec. 19 to reflect Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to sign the N.Y. state bill into law.

This article appears in February 2026.

Edward Desciak is an O'Hare Fellow at America Media.