The Illinois House late in the day May 29 passed an assisted-suicide bill that Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich said has the potential to spur “suicide contagion.”
In a May 30 statement posted by the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Cupich questioned the merits of the so-called “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” which was entered as an amendment to a food safety bill that covers inspection provisions of ready-to-eat meal kits and prepared foods that are sold at stores.
The amendment to Senate Bill 1950 makes it legal for any adult patient with terminal illness who is given a prognosis of six months or less to live by a doctor to receive prescriptions for powerful medications at very high doses that they would take to kill themselves.
The bill requires two doctors to concur on the terminal diagnosis. The doctor who gives the terminal prognosis, a pharmacist or, if needed, a licensed mental health professional would have to determine the patient’s mental fitness to self-administer the lethal cocktail of strong drugs.
“I have to ask why, in a time when growing understanding of the deteriorating mental health of the U.S. population – and particularly among our youth – caused the country to create the 988 mental health crisis line, we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges?” the cardinal stated.
He referred to findings that in “places where assisted suicide is available,” suicide rates increase. Delaware’s governor May 20 signed its physician-assisted suicide bill into law, bringing to 12 the total number of jurisdictions in the country that have such a law.
Cardinal Cupich said, “These rates are already unacceptably high, and proposed cutbacks in medical care funding will add to the burden faced by those contemplating suicide.”
The cardinal expressed concern over the potential for such a law to influence young minds. In the statement Cardinal Cupich cited figures from a 2022 Centers for Disease Control study showing suicide as the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10-34.
The bill was waiting for concurrence from the Senate in a vote, which opponents said they were working hard to stop. The spring legislative session was scheduled to end May 31.
Robert Gilligan, the chief lobbyist for the Catholic Conference of Illinois, told OSV News that his office and other opposing groups have been pushing hard to convince the undecided senators to vote no on the measure. But he said they were noncommittal.
“They’ll say things like ‘I don’t know if they have the votes,’” he said. “Or ‘I don’t want to vote on this.’”
Thirty votes in the Democratic-majority Senate are needed to pass the amended food safety measure, which originally passed the Senate’s committee, under the sponsorship of Sen. Linda Holmes, a Democrat from Aurora, a suburb west of Chicago.
“If they call for a vote, they got the votes,” Gilligan said.
Holmes, who calls herself a nonpracticing Catholic, sponsored the original physician-assisted suicide bill in the Senate, which stalled April 10. The House version was suspended May 13. Both bills and the current amendment have been consistently met with overwhelming witness opposition whenever they have gone before committees.
In the archdiocesan statement, Cardinal Cupich also added that this issue touches his personal life because he had a terminally ill parent.
“My father was kept comfortable and was cherished until his natural death,” said the cardinal. “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,” he ended.
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