Disability advocates file lawsuits against two state assisted suicide laws

Disability advocates last week filed simultaneous federal lawsuits seeking to halt assisted suicide laws in both New York and Illinois.

Key Takeaways:

• End Assisted Suicide, a coalition of of disability and patient advocacy organizations, filed federal lawsuits on June 11 against assisted suicide legislation in New York and Illinois.

• Both states have recently passed laws which are scheduled to take effect in the upcoming months.

• The lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of each new law, arguing that they threaten the life and well-being of individuals with disabilities by singling them out for lethal drugs, rather than providing equitable care.

The Details:

Both lawsuits were part of an initiative by End Assisted Suicide, a coalition of of disability and patient advocacy organizations. The suits, filed June 11, challenge the constitutionality of each state's assisted suicide legislation, arguing that the laws threaten the life and well-being of individuals with disabilities by singling them out for access to lethal drugs, rather than for the provision of equitable care.

“Assisted suicide laws in New York and Illinois create a separate and unequal system in which people with life-threatening disabilities are offered death instead of the support programs everyone else gets,” said Matt Vallière, president/executive director of plaintiff organization Institute for Patients’ Rights. “These legal actions are about affirming that every person has inestimable value and dignity, regardless of age, disability, or prognosis, and ensuring that no one is treated as disposable under the law.”

The coalition leading the lawsuits is comprised of the national organizations Not Dead Yet, NCLI, Institute for Patients' Rights, and United Spinal Association. Other organizations and individuals local to either New York or Illinois round out the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, which are the fourth and fifth such suits brought by End Assisted Suicide.

Zoom In:

The lawsuits are seeking to overturn recently-passed legislation in two separate states.

Illinois

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed SB 1950, legalizing "assisted death" in December 2025. The law is scheduled to go into effect in September. That bill was passed by state lawmakers as an amendment to a completely unrelated food service preparation bill.

The plaintiffs challenging the law argue that it violates the “ethical obligation of every physician to do no harm."

Ebony Payne is a quadriplegic who has joined the suit as a plaintiff.

“I joined the lawsuit because of personal experiences that brought me really close to death and the people who I leaned on to do the right thing became the people to do the opposite. It [the Illinois law] is a trainwreck and is not what you expect from people who are obligated to do no harm,” Payne said.

New York

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the state's assisted suicide bill, S138 in January. The law, which allows those who are considered terminally ill to access lethal drugs, will take effect in August.

“When states legalize assisted suicide while simultaneously cutting home care and community-based services, they send a dangerous message: that death is a solution for disability and lack of support,” said plaintiff Sharon Shapiro, a board member at the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled.

“This is not ‘choice,’ it’s discrimination,” she said.

The Bottom Line:

All people deserve to be protected from the threat of state-sanctioned, state-approved death.