Legislators in Illinois are working to quietly legalize assisted suicide by attaching pro-assisted death language to a food preparation sanitation bill as an amendment. The move comes after a proposed assisted suicide bill appears to have stalled in the House and Senate as the 2025 legislative session comes to a close.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- An assisted suicide bill introduced in Illinois in January appears to have stalled in both the House and Senate, and the legislative session will close on May 31.
- Democratic Rep. Robyn Gabel has attached the stalled assisted suicide bill’s language to a food preparation safety bill as an amendment.
- The assisted suicide language allows for people diagnosed with a “terminal illness” and given six months or less to live to be prescribed a deadly drug cocktail.
THE DETAILS:
According to the Catholic Conference of Illinois, a lawmaker in the state is attempting to quietly push an assisted suicide bill through the legislature during the final days of the 2025 session. It appears to be a last-ditch effort to get assisted suicide legalized by hiding the legislation within another bill.
As reported by the Illinois Family Institute, Representative Robyn Gabel (D-Chicago) attached an amendment with assisted death language from a stalled bill to SB 1950, a food preparation safety bill. Amendment 2 states, “Medical aid in dying is part of general medical care and complements other end-of-life options, such as comfort care, pain control, palliative care, and hospice care…”
It defines “Terminal disease” as an incurable and irreversible disease that will, within reasonable medical judgment, result in death within 6 months.”
To diminish the act of physician-assisted killing for what it really is — suicide — the amendment stipulates that deaths “in accordance with this Act do not, for any purposes, constitute suicide, assisted suicide, euthanasia, mercy killing, homicide, murder, manslaughter, elder abuse or neglect, or any other civil or criminal violation under the law.”
THE BACKSTORY:
In January, legislators in Illinois filed an assisted suicide bill in both the Senate (SB 9) and the House (HB1328). Known as the “End of Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” it aimed to allow a person considered “terminally ill” to receive and self-administer lethal drugs after a physician determined they were mentally sound and had less than six months to live.
Though it made some progress, the bill is currently stalled. It has seen no movement in the Senate since April, while in the House, it remains in committee. Having not passed in either chamber, there is little to no chance that it will pass with just days left in the session. However, SB 1950, the state’s food preparation sanitation bill, has already passed the Illinois Senate and is now before the Illinois House. If the House passes the bill, the Senate will then only need to concur for the bill to go to the governor’s desk.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
By taking language from the assisted suicide bill, which is not likely to pass before the session closes on May 31, and adding it to an unrelated bill, pro-assisted death legislators are hoping to quietly legalize assisted suicide.
