Illinois Senate advances assisted suicide bill hidden in a food safety bill

The Illinois Senate has advanced a bill that would legalize assisted suicide. SB 1950, which is a food safety preparation bill, includes an amendment aimed at legalizing assisted death. It passed with the minimum required three votes on Friday at 3:00 a.m. and will now go to the desk of Gov. JB Pritzker.

Key Takeaways:

• After an assisted suicide bill failed to advance in both the Illinois House and Senate earlier this year, its supporters snuck language to legalize physician-assisted death into a food safety preparation bill.

• That bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate before the session ended.

• It was revived last week and passed the Senate by three votes.

• The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Pritzker, and if he signs it, Illinois will become the 11th state to legalize assisted death.

The Backstory:

Earlier this year, a proposed assisted suicide bill stalled in both the Illinois House and Senate as the legislative session came to a close. In an effort to push the bill through, language legalizing assisted death was added as an amendment to SB 1950, a bill concerning sanitary food preparation.

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…”

Even the Daily Mail saw the amendment for what it is, calling it a “sneaky attempt to quietly pass assisted suicide legislation” and an “absurd tactic.” Yet, the bill managed to pass the House in May, before stalling in the Senate in June.

The Details:

This session, pro-assisted death state senators brought SB 1950 back up, and it has now passed the Senate.

"As our families slept, the Illinois Senate quietly advanced a bill to legalize assisted suicide — passing it by the bare minimum of votes at 3 in the morning on October 31st," wrote the Illinois Family Institute. "This puts the future of life-and-death decisions in Governor Pritzker’s hands."

According to the Illinois Family Institute, Pastor Calvin Lindstrom responded to the bill's passage saying, "This proposal would legalize the abandonment of the desperate, dressing suicide as ‘dignity’ while the state and conniving doctors washes their hands of the duty to protect life. My heart breaks for every soul in such pain that death seems the only door. May God’s people bring a witness of true hope in the face of death.”

The Bottom Line:

If Prizker signs the bill, Illinois will become the 11th state , plus Washington, D.C., to legalize physician-assisted killing. The laws vary by state, but ultimately, each one sends a discriminatory message to the sick and disabled that their lives are not worth living. Legalized assisted suicide has led to pressure to die as insurance companies determine that it costs less to kill a person than to treat them.