Last-minute assisted suicide bill fails to pass Illinois Senate

Opponents of assisted suicide in Illinois are breathing a sigh of relief that the spring legislative session ended May 31 without an Illinois Senate vote on a bill that would have allowed terminally ill people to take their own lives.

However, the bill could come back when the legislature reconvenes, said Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois.

The end-of-session push for the bill came as something of a surprise, he said, since bills allowing assisted suicide in the state did not seem to be making much progress in either the state House or Senate, Gilligan said.

The Senate version, Senate Bill 9, had passed through the executive committee in April, but not been called for a vote. The House version, House Bill 1328, did not make it through the rules committee, which assigns bills to working committees for hearings.

But just days before the May 31 end of the legislative session, proponents of the assisted suicide bill in the Illinois House stripped all the language from a bill that had already been passed by the senate — SB1950, which had to do with food preparation and sanitation — and replaced it with the language in the end-of-life bill.

The bill would allow terminally ill people who are expected to die within six months to get a prescription to end their lives. They would have to take the drugs themselves.

That passed the House on May 29 and was sent back to the Senate for a straight up-or-down vote.

That vote never happened, Gilligan said, apparently because proponents did not believe they had the 30 Senate votes they needed to pass the bill.

“Feverishly both sides were trying to work it,” he said. “You have the budget, you have these other major issues, there’s kind of a lot going on and it does get kind of sticky to get it done in that time frame.”

Since there was no vote, the bill remains “live,” and can be called for a vote at any time when the legislature is back in session.

Cardinal Cupich issued a statement May 30 opposing the bill, asking, among other things, why “we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges” at a time when many people, especially young people, are suffering from deteriorating mental health.

 Budget proposals under consideration in Congress would slash funding for mental health, despite the 988 suicide prevention hotline logging more than 10 million calls in its first year.

Gilligan said that support and opposition to the bill did not fall neatly along the usual political lines. Disability rights groups, for example, such as Access Living and Progress Center for Independent Living, expressed concern that disabled people could be coerced into taking their own lives so as not to be a burden to their families.

Others worried that patients might see suicide as an option if health insurance does not fully cover palliative care or other needs, Gilligan said.

“This is a big issue, it’s a big step, literally life and death,” he said. “There’s a lot of complexities with this issue.”

One thing that is clear is that states that have allowed assisted suicide have seen their rates of all suicides increase, he said.

Cardinal Cupich acknowledged that in his statement, saying, “While the bill sets parameters for assisted suicide, the data from places where assisted suicide is available are clear. Rates of all suicide went up after the passage of such legislation. These rates are already unacceptably high, and proposed cutbacks in medical care funding will add to the burden faced by those contemplating suicide.”

He also spoke of the effectiveness of palliative care, which he witnessed when his father died from a “debilitating illness.”

“My father was kept comfortable and was cherished until his natural death,” the statement said. “Catholic teaching supports such palliative care so long as the goal is not to end life. There is a way to both honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness. Surely the Illinois legislature should explore those options before making suicide one of the avenues available to the ill and distressed.”