A Catholic law firm has filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois over a controversial new bill to legalize assisted suicide.

After the state of Illinois passed a bill to legalize assisted suicide last fall, the Thomas More Society promised to fight back against the bill, which was introduced as “sanitary food preparation” and passed the State Senate in the dead of night.

In reality, SB 1950 was a bill that would allow those deemed to have less than six months to live to receive a substance to end their lives. 

Under the terms of the “End of Life Options” Act, set to take effect on September 12, healthcare providers would be required to either prescribe lethal doses of medication to patients or discuss the option with patients and refer them to providers who will.

The law would also require religiously affiliated hospitals and healthcare facilities to allow their own employees to promote assisted suicide on premises, and to assist in patient suicides off-site on their own time. The institution would not be permitted to fire or discipline them, even if their participation violates the institution’s religious guidelines, mission, and identity. 

Both requirements violate the religious liberty of Catholics and other people of faith who believe that assisted suicide is a grave moral evil.

“This immoral scheme flagrantly violates religious liberty and free speech rights, and we intend to stop it,” said Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society, in a press release.

The Thomas More Society filed a complaint on behalf of Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois; the Lutheran Care Center; and four Illinois physicians. The suit, Mary Keen Kirchoff, M.D., et al. v. Treto, Jr., was filed August 11 in U.S. District Court in Chicago. 

Plaintiffs include four highly skilled physicians — two oncologists and two rehabilitation specialists — and a Lutheran skilled nursing facility, “none of whom can in good conscience comply” as they “sincerely object both morally and religiously to facilitating assisted suicide in any way,” according to the suit.

Bishop Paprocki joined the plaintiffs as his diocese is home to two large Catholic hospital systems and “he is charged with enforcing the USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” which state in part:

Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way. Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death.

Similar situations in other states offer a glimmer of hope. Recently, in New York, the Diocese of Rockville Center and four religious communities filed a lawsuit over a similar assisted-suicide law and won a temporary stay of the mandate. 

Meanwhile, critics point to other countries as a cautionary tale. Nations where assisted suicide is legal have seen rapid expansion of the criteria far beyond what was originally legalized. Ten years into Canada’s legalization, assisted suicide now accounts for 5% of deaths annually. Advocates for the dignity of life, conscience rights, and disability rights continue to sound an alarm over reported abuses of the law there.