Bishops’ Statements on Current Issues
Illinois’ six diocesan bishops occasionally make statements on current issues important to the Church, either as a group or as individuals. When the statement is issued as a group, it reflects the view of the Church statewide. Individual bishops may choose to make a statement on issues of specific interest to their dioceses.
Illinois Bishops Issue Letter Urging Governor to Veto Assisted Suicide
December 10, 2025
The Honorable J.B. Pritzker
Governor of Illinois
555 W. Monroe St., 16th Floor
Chicago, IL 60661
Dear Governor Pritzker:
We are writing to ask you to veto SB 1950, legislation of grave moral importance that allows for assisted suicide in Illinois.
As Governor, you will be instrumental in choosing which of two divergent paths end-of-life care in Illinois will follow. The preferred path is to ensure Illinoisans at the end of their life will have compassionate, loving care provided by trained professionals and/or loving family members. The other is create an environment that allows insurance companies to provide low-cost lethal drugs to those who cannot access quality end of life care. The choice is clear. Please veto SB 1950.
Some describe SB 1950 as the compassionate choice. This bill is not about compassion. The legislation requires no services to be offered to the person requesting death, there is no requirement that family be near the loved one at the point of death, or that the person is not being coerced into ending their life. This has already dangerously played out in other states with these laws in place. This is not compassion.
A compassionate path forward is to support dying persons by alleviating their suffering through palliative care, hospice care, and other comprehensive programs. The reason many seek to end their lives is the difficulties accessing quality palliative and hospice care. Working with our legislature, our state can address this. Real compassion demands we invest in and ensure access to excellent pain management and holistic support for the terminally ill, allowing them to live their final days in comfort and peace, surrounded by family, friends and other emotional supports. There are many places in Illinois where there are too few, if any palliative care centers. For those facing serious life-limiting illness in Illinois, access to community palliative care services should be mandated and readily available. We support increasing funding for these programs and ensuring they are of the highest quality possible.
This legislation will also lead to more suicide in Illinois. According to a study conducted by David Paton, legalizing assisted suicide is associated with a 6.3 percent increase in total suicide. It defies common sense for our state to enact a 9-8-8 suicide hotline, increase funding for suicide prevention programs, and then pass a law that, based on the experience of other jurisdictions, results in more suicide. If you were to sign this into law, what if a person who wanted physician assisted suicide were to call this hotline? According to a 2022 United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for U.S. teens and young adults 10-34. And, according to the National Institutes of Health, suicide contagion is a real risk to these young people after exposure to suicide.
Your support of the 2024 Health Protection Act has shown your concern about insurance companies refusing to cover necessary, expensive care and treatment. But the Act stops short of protecting Illinoisians against cases such as those documented in other states of people being denied treatment by health insurance companies and instead, offered assisted suicide. That is not compassion.
We also believe within a few short years, the alleged safeguards will no longer exist. Other states eventually eliminated their state residency requirement, thus opening assisted suicide to anyone in the world. Other safeguards have fallen, too. For example, if the law allows one to end their life due to a terminal illness what is to stop a court or future legislature from allowing a person suffering from a chronic illness to end their life. What stops someone who just wants to stop living from accessing medical assistance to do so? That has been the case in Canada as all their safeguards were eliminated. In 2016, there were only a little over 1,000 assisted suicide deaths in Canada. Less than a decade later, there were 15,000. Similarly, other US states have been slowly eliminating safeguards. We fear that once assisted suicide is legal, it becomes an acceptable alternative to both compassionate care and to mental health treatment that might encourage potential suicides to consider a different path. Aiding someone in killing himself or herself is not the answer. Alleviation of suffering is the answer, the true compassionate choice.
CC:
The Honorable Grace Hou-Ovnik, Deputy Governor for Health and Human Services
The Honorable Ryan Croke, First Assistant Deputy Governor for Health and Human Services
Emily Miller, Senior Advisor to the Governor for Policy and Legislative Affairs
A pdf version of this letter can be found HERE
Spanish and Polish translations of this letter are forthcoming.
CCI Statement on Passage of Assisted Suicide – SB 1950
Statement on Passage Assisted Suicide: SB 1950
October 31, 2025
With the passage of legislation to legalize assisted suicide in Illinois, the Illinois General Assembly has put our state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences. With all the assaults on human dignity and the growing number of vulnerable people we see every day, sadly the leaders and members of the General Assembly who voted for this offer us suicide as its response.
The bill now goes to the Governor, and we ask him not only to veto this bill in totality, but also to address humanely the reasons why some view assisted suicide as their only option and to heed the impact of similar legislation on other states and nations.
Many lawmakers chose to ignore the real advances in palliative medical care as an alternative to assisted suicide. Rather than signing this bill, we ask the Governor to expand and improve on palliative care programs that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms. These programs support caregivers and help ensure patient care is coordinated with other services. And they represent a compassionate and morally acceptable alternative to assisted suicide.
Today, we face real and immediate threats to human life and dignity, many from the very institutions created to protect them. The government shut down, a growing number of private and government sector layoffs, the terrorizing and deportation of our neighbors, and the loss of food and medical assistance for the poor and vulnerable are immediate problems that need attention, not enacting assisted suicide.
Let us also consider the impact on impressionable young people of legalizing suicide in any form. According to a 2022 United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for U.S. teens and young adults 10-34. It is the second-leading cause of death for those 10-14. And, according to the National Institutes of Health, suicide contagion is a real risk to these young people after exposure to suicide. Add to that the ready availability of firearms in the U.S. and this is a tragedy we do not need to compound.
It defies common sense for our state to enact a 9-8-8 suicide hotline, increase funding for suicide prevention programs and then pass a law that, based on the experience of other jurisdictions, results in more suicide.
Join us as we continue to pray for all those who are sick and at the end of life, their caregivers and for all who feel life is no long worth living and need our support.
For media inquiries please email gilligan@ilcatholic.org.
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A pdf version of this statement can be found HERE.
Illinois Bishops Provide Comments to COGFA on Proposed Prison Closures
In comments from the Catholic Conference of Illinois (CCI), the Catholic bishops of Illinois reminded lawmakers who are part of the decision on proposed changes to Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet and Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln to ensure correctional facilities respect the inherent human dignity of all those incarcerated.
The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) and the legislative members of COGFA will soon be making recommendations to the Governor.
While CCI does not have a position on whether to close and reconstruct either facility, the bishops urged that there be consistent access for ministry and adequate space for programming and reentry services. If relocation is decided, the state must consider challenges families may have in continuing to visit their family members. “We must provide vital opportunities to heal from trauma, engage in meaningful personal development, and gain new skills.”
The full letter to COGFA can be found HERE.