Cardinal, nuns challenge assisted suicide law
[September 04, 2026]
By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The Catholic archbishop of Chicago, two orders of
nuns and a rural pharmacist filed a lawsuit against Illinois on Thursday
over the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm,
the Little Sisters of the Poor and Morrison, Illinois pharmacist Luke
Vander Bleek filed the complaint in federal court against Illinois
Department of Veterans Affairs Director Terry Prince, Illinois
Department of Public Health Director Sameer Vohra and Illinois
Department of Financial and Professional Regulation Secretary Mario
Treto, Jr.
The plaintiffs argue the law violates their religious beliefs by forcing
them to help terminally ill patients kill themselves.
“The elderly people who come to our homes are looking for a place where
they will be cherished and cared for until natural death. They should be
free to choose that kind of care without having assisted suicide
inserted into it by the state,” Mother Julie Marie, mother provincial of
the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor, said.
On behalf of the plaintiffs, Becket Law asked the court to block the law
before it takes effect Sept. 12, when health care providers who refuse
to take part in assisted suicide face significant fines and penalties.
Becket Senior Counsel Adele Keim said the whole law is illegal under the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
“If you are a healthy young person and you want to commit suicide, the
state bans anyone from helping you to do that. There's a criminal
prohibition on assisting a suicide. But if you are sick, terminally ill,
then the state doesn't protect you from suicide,” Keim said.
The case follows a similar lawsuit filed last month by Diocese of
Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center of
Altamont, and four Christian medical professionals.
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About 10 days later, on Aug. 21, U.S. District Judge Franklin U.
Valderrama issued a temporary restraining order after state
officials agreed to not force the parties involved to refer patients
for medically-assisted suicide until the courts rule on the pending
challenge to the law.
Plaintiffs in the new case filed Thursday said Illinois also
threatens religious caregivers for speaking a life-affirming message
against suicide by imposing a gag order on their care.
Keim said orthodox Jewish and Muslim doctors, as well as other
Christians, oppose the law as well.
“They do not believe that they have the right to take another's life
or that someone else should cut their life short before the time
that God has given them,” Keim said.
Senate Bill 1950 was initially filed to amend the Sanitary Food
Preparation Act, but the bill text was gutted and replaced just
before lawmakers passed the measure at the end of the 2025 fall veto
session ended.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed SB 1950 Dec. 12 on the Catholic feast of
Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Later that month, Illinois native Pope Leo XIV said he was
disappointed and that he spoke explicitly with Pritzker about the
legislation when the governor visited Rome in November.
Jonathan Bilyk and Sean Reed contributed to
this story
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