(Oregon Right to Life) — Illinois lawmakers early in the morning on October 31 quietly passed a bill to legalize assisted suicide in the state, provoking strong criticism from pro-life and disability rights groups.
The Illinois State Senate narrowly passed the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act” (Senate Bill 1950), early Friday, October 31, by a tight 30–27 margin with two senators refraining from voting. As passed, the bill – which was originally put forward as a food safety measure and later amended to include assisted suicide language – would allow “a qualified patient with a terminal disease to request that a physician prescribe aid-in-dying medication…”
The measure will now go to Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker’s desk for a signature.
National Right to Life President Carol Tobias responded to the bill’s passage in a statement, arguing the legislation places vulnerable people at risk under the guise of “compassion.”
“Under the cover of darkness, Illinois lawmakers chose to advance a policy that endangers the elderly, those with disabilities, and individuals struggling with depression or terminal illness,” Tobias said in a statement shared with Oregon Right to Life. “Assisted suicide is not compassion—it’s abandonment. Illinois residents deserve laws that protect vulnerable people, not ones that pressure them toward an early death.”
Tobias also pointed out that “safeguards” implemented in states where assisted suicide is legalized tend to “quickly erode,” leading to a growing trend in which the “so-called ‘right to die’ becomes a duty to die” – something about which pro-life and disability rights advocates in Oregon are acutely aware. Roughly half of Oregon’s assisted suicide patients cite being a “burden” on family or care-givers among their “end-of-life concerns.”
As the earliest adopter, Oregon has become a case study for legal assisted suicide. The state became the first to legalize assisted suicide when its “Death With Dignity” law took effect in 1997. Subsequently, various bills have chipped away at existing “safeguards.” In 2020, a law took effect allowing physicians to waive the 15-day waiting period if death was considered “imminent.” In 2023, another law eliminated the residency requirement, enabling people to travel to Oregon from other states to legally receive lethal drugs. Ongoing efforts by pro-assisted suicide groups and lawmakers have attempted to further reduce regulations, including an attempt during the 2025 legislative session to drastically reduce the waiting period and pave the way for non-physicians to prescribe lethal drugs.
In practice, even without official regulatory rollbacks, opponents of assisted suicide point out that physicians can and do find loopholes to legislative “safeguards.” For example, the Illinois assisted suicide bill defines a “terminal disease” as “an incurable and irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, result in death within 6 months.” The definition is almost identical to the one provided in Oregon’s “Death With Dignity Act.” However, neither indicates whether or not the predicted death would occur with or without treatment.
“So many people living with chronic disease can become terminal if they stop their treatments,” Lydia Dugdale, a physician and ethicist at Columbia University, previously told The Free Press in remarks concerning New York’s assisted suicide bill. “And that then expands eligibility pretty significantly.” She pointed to diabetes and HIV as examples of conditions that can become terminal if patients opt out of ongoing treatment. Anorexia and arthritis have been listed as underlying illnesses in official Oregon Death With Dignity reporting.
And while the language of the Illinois bill prohibits the qualification of patients for assisted suicide “solely because of advanced age, disability, or a mental health condition, including depression,” it does not consider any of those conditions to be disqualifying.
“The people of Illinois have every reason to be alarmed,” Tobias said in her Friday statement. She urged Governor Pritzker to “veto this bill and support true compassionate care for those facing serious illness.”
In an email shared with Oregon Right to Life, Patients Rights Action Fund Special Projects Coordinator Barbara Lyons also called on Gov. Pritzker to veto the bill, pointing out that “[d]iligent dedicated work was put in for years to defeat the bill by a very strong and large coalition of Illinois organizations and individuals.”
“Focus now turns to convince the Governor that he must veto this dangerous bill which will put vulnerable [Illinoisans] at risk,” Lyons said. “Our work doesn’t end here, and all our voices will be needed to prevent further movement. When these bills do pass, they are by the slimmest of margins; if you haven’t been involved before, now is the time.”
The surprise passage of the Illinois assisted suicide bill comes after New York passed a similar bill earlier this year.
In June, Democrats in the New York State Senate passed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” sending the measure to Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul for a signature.
New York’s MAID Act is similar in many ways to Oregon’s “Death With Dignity Act,” but goes even further by allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to vulnerable New Yorkers with no mandated waiting period.
To date, Governor Hochul has not signed the bill. Disability rights and pro-life advocates across the country continue to urge Hochul to reject the measure.
