Lawmakers weigh whether to legalize ‘medical aid in dying’
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 [February 22, 2025]
By Andrew Adams
CHICAGO — Lawmakers are considering legalizing a controversial medical
practice that proponents say could ease suffering for the terminally
ill.
It’s sometimes called “assisted suicide,” although physicians and
advocates for the practice prefer the term “medical aid in dying,” or
MAID.
While Compassion & Choices — a group that advocates for medical aid in
dying policies — found a majority of Illinois voters supported
legalizing MAID in a 2023 poll, some critics call the process
“barbaric.”
The measure, contained in Senate Bill 9, is being backed by Sen. Linda
Holmes, D-Aurora, who told her Senate colleagues at a hearing Friday
that she supports the proposal because of her parents’ deaths. Both her
mother and father died after extended battles with cancer.
Holmes’ proposal would legalize MAID — a process where a doctor
prescribes but does not administer a lethal combination of drugs — for
patients whose doctors determine have less than six months to live due
to a terminal illness. The patient then administers the drugs on their
own at a time of their choosing.
The bill contains several safeguards to prevent abuse, according to its
proponents, including a waiting period to receive a prescription, a
requirement that the patient receive a terminal diagnosis from two
doctors, a requirement that patients prescribed lethal medication have
sufficient “mental capacity.”
Friday’s meeting of the powerful Senate Executive Committee was a
“subject matter” hearing, meaning no vote was taken. The bill will need
more committee hearings, a vote in both legislative chambers and
approval by the governor before becoming law.
Ten other states and Washington, D.C., have all legalized some form of
medical aid in dying. Oregon was the first state to legalize MAID in
1994.
Advocates for the proposal include patients with terminal illnesses,
people whose loved ones used the procedure in other states and doctors
who specialize in end-of-life care.
In 2022, Deb Robertson of Lombard was diagnosed with neuroendocrine
carcinoma — a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer. She asked
lawmakers to give her “permission” to take her own life.
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Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora, speaks at a legislative hearing on a
bill that would legalize “medical aid in dying.” (Capitol News
Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
Diana Barnard, a doctor in Vermont who offers MAID prescriptions, said
most patients have “a very clear understanding” of what’s an acceptable
quality of life as they approach death.
“We have now 27 years of national experience with the practice that
really shows these laws are working well,” Barnard said.
But the medical practice is controversial among doctors and disability
activists.
Benjamin German, a doctor on the West Side of Chicago, said the
“problem” with the bill was its safeguards.
“For some of my patients, these safeguards will be just tight enough for
lawmakers to assume things will be okay and amply generous to allow
abuse to happen,” German said. “People and organizations looking for
ways to exploit this law, I fear, will find a way.”
Disability advocates, meanwhile, say they worry about medical
professionals mischaracterizing illnesses as terminal, misdiagnosing
people or pushing vulnerable or marginalized people to consider ending
their own life.
“As someone with a disability myself – I use a wheelchair – I can say
firsthand that my life is often viewed as something to pity and not
something to cherish,” Riley Spreadbury, an independent living advocate
from Joliet, said. “It’s sentiments like these that make me incredibly
concerned regarding Senate Bill 9.”
MAID is also opposed by groups that express a “consistent life ethic,”
meaning they object to abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide,
and euthanasia. Those groups include the Catholic Church and
non-religious groups such as Illinois Right to Life.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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