On Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary order preventing a new Illinois state law from forcing health care groups with a conscientious objection to assisted suicide from promoting the deadly practice.

Key Takeaways:

• A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against an Illinois law that will force healthcare groups and doctors to promote assisted suicide to patients when it takes effect in September.

• The law was signed by Governor JB Pritzker in December of 2025 and two lawsuits followedk in an attempt to block the law.

• A coalition of plaintiffs, including Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four physicians filed a lawsuit on April 11. Under the order, the Plaintiffs will not face penalties for failing to follow the law as the lawsuit moves forward.

The Backstory:

On December 12, 2025, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed Senate Bill 1950, the "Sanitary Food Preparation Bill." Hidden within the bill's text was an amendment that created the "End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act," allowing adults considered "terminally ill" to end their lives via assisted suicide.

The law is scheduled to take effect on September 12. In the meantime, two lawsuits have been filed against it. The first was filed in June by the group End Assisted Suicide and the second on August 11 by a coalition of plaintiffs including Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four physicians. It is the second lawsuit which the recent federal court order is addressing.

The Details:

Last week, U.S. District Judge Franklin U. Valderrama placed a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of provisions within the "End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients.... pending the issuance of the mandate in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in NIFLA v. Treto and Schroeder v. Treto, and this Court's subsequent ruling on Plaintiffs' expected motion for preliminary injunction."

In a press release, the Thomas More Society shared, "The State of Illinois has agreed to a federal court order issued on Friday temporarily enjoining it from enforcing its new assisted suicide law against Catholic hospitals under the authority of the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, the Lutheran Care Center, and four Illinois physicians while their federal lawsuit moves forward."

Illinois will not apply the pro-assisted suicide law to Mary Keen Kirchoff, M.D.; Michael Porubcin, M.D.; Michael Hawking, M.D.; Brian Couri, M.D.; the Catholic health care ministries of the Most Reverend Thomas J. Paprocki's diocese of Springfield; and the Lutheran Care Center — at least not for now, "while a separate case raising similar issues is resolved on appeal," said the Thomas More Society.

“Illinois’s new law forces faithful health care providers to cooperate in the state’s suicide promotion scheme, and this agreement protects our clients from this grave assault on their religious beliefs,” said Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at the Thomas More Society. “No government has the power to tell a bishop what is or isn’t moral or to require doctors to violate their oath to respect and protect human life. This is a critical first victory for these faithful doctors, for Bishop Paprocki’s Catholic hospitals, and for the Lutheran Care Center.”

What's Happening Now:

When the law takes effect on September 12, the plaintiffs will be protected from the penalties for not following it, including fines of up to $10,000 per violation, the loss of licensure, and criminal prosecution.

According to the Thomas More Society, "The order will stay in place until the district court rules on Thomas More Society’s forthcoming motion for a preliminary injunction. That motion will follow a decision in Schroeder v. Treto, a separate Thomas More Society challenge to Illinois’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act now awaiting a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which raises some of the same questions at issue in this case."