Several groups — including a Catholic bishop, a Lutheran nursing home, and four Illinois physicians — have joined together to file a lawsuit against a new Illinois law allowing assisted suicide, scheduled to go into effect September 12.

Key Takeaways:

• A coalition of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop a law allowing assisted suicide in Illinois from taking effect.

• The plaintiffs argue that the law violates their rights of free speech, as well as religious protections.

• The lawsuit is the second against the legislation, which is scheduled to go into effect on September 12.

The Details:

On August 11, a coalition including Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four physicians filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Represented by the Thomas More Society (TMS), the group maintains that the state's 'End of Life Options' Act violates the constitutional right to free speech and religious protections.

As a TMS press release notes:

The law requires faithful medical professionals to help facilitate patient suicides in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, centuries of legal and medical tradition, and their deeply held religious convictions.

Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at TMS, further explained:

“Illinois is forcing faith-based hospitals, nuns, and doctors into supporting the state’s assisted suicide regime.

The law commands Catholic hospitals, religious nursing homes, and faithful doctors to promote suicide’s alleged ‘benefits,’ refer patients to suicide drug prescribers, and then lie on death certificates to cover it up.

This immoral scheme flagrantly violates religious liberty and free speech rights, and we intend to stop it.”

The lawsuit seeks an injunction on the law before it is slated to take effect on September 12.

This is now the second lawsuit seeking to stop the state's assisted suicide law.

In June, the group End Assisted Suicide, which is a coalition of disability and patient advocacy organization, also filed a suit challenging the law's constitutionality. That lawsuit argues that the law threatens the life and well-being of individuals with disabilities by singling them out for lethal drugs, rather than providing equitable care.

The Backstory:

In the late night hours of October 31, 2025, Illinois lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1950. Though the legislation was titled as a "Sanitary Food Preparation Bill," hidden within the text was an amendment that created the "End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act," allowing terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live to choose to take their own lives via assisted suicide.

The legislation was met with immediate outcry from those opposed to assisted suicide, with even the Daily Mail noting that disguising the law in such a way was "sneaky" and an "absurd tactic."

Though many groups, including the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, urged Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to veto the legislation, he signed it on December 12, 2025.

The Bottom Line:

Several of the plaintiffs offered statements explaining their opposition to the legislation.

“At the heart of the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry is the healing work of Christ — to stand with the suffering, to comfort the dying, and to affirm the God-given dignity of every human life,” said Bishop Paprocki. “Illinois’s assisted suicide law undermines that mission by forcing Catholic hospitals and those who serve in them to push death onto their most vulnerable patients."

Dr. Mary Keen, another Plaintiff, added:

“The State’s demand that physicians begin helping patients accomplish assisted suicide violates everything I know as a health care professional, as well as my deeply held Catholic convictions on the dignity of every human life.

As a doctor, I have a responsibility to meet my patients’ existential pain with loving accompaniment, not with abandonment.”