The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has called on Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to veto the physician-assisted suicide bill that is still on his desk after the Senate passed it 30-27 just before 3 a.m. on Halloween.
Chris Jones, the editorial page editor, leads the editorial board, according to the Tribune’s website. The other members are Stephen Daniels, Hilary Gowins, and Clarence Page.
“There’s an element of the macabre in the fact that this bill passed on Halloween, but we digress,” the Nov. 4 editorial said.
The “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” Senate Bill 1950, would become effective nine months after passage, as CatholicVote reported the day it passed the Senate. It applies to Illinois residents who doctors have said have no more than six months to live and who are capable of making and communicating the desire for physician-assisted suicide. Health care professionals and health entities do not have to complete the procedure, but they would need to refer the patient to a new health care professional if the patient makes that request.
The editorial said that in spring 2024, the board met with people “on both sides of the issue” before they asked state legislators to “leave this issue alone.”
“On the one hand, folks who are opposed to medical-assisted dying draw the line at a doctor – sworn to protect human life – intentionally being part of causing it to end and thus being asked to carry that ethical burden,” the editorial said. “On the other, supporters pointed to the seemingly needless suffering many face at the end of their lives. We’ve witnessed such agony firsthand, and to that end are passionately supportive of palliative care that seeks to lessen this agony.”
The board said it has several concerns about the bill: that the safeguards the bill has may “soon become viewed as barriers to access,” that people with terminal illness might desire physician-assisted suicide because they’re afraid they will financially burden their family; and the possibility that the eligibility for physician-assisted suicide may expand to what’s in place in Canada and the Netherlands.
“Compassion should guide end-of-life policy, but compassion also demands caution,” the board said. “Other nations show how swiftly a narrow exception can expand. Illinois should focus on easing pain, not authorizing physicians to hasten death.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Illinois would become the 12th state to legalize physician-assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill.
Springfield, Illinois, Bishop Thomas Paprocki asked Catholics to pray that Pritzker vetoes the bill, as CatholicVote reported Nov. 5.
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