(The Center Square) – Aid-in-dying legislation remains at the Illinois Statehouse after it failed to clear the Illinois Senate before legislators adjourned for the summer.
Lawmakers spent well over an hour on the House floor last week discussing an amended version of Senate Bill 1950, which was initially introduced as “sanitary food preparation” legislation.
SB 1950 took language from Senate Bill 9, or the End-of-Life Options for Terminally-Ill Patients Act, which was introduced by state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora. Legislators previously spent time debating SB 9 in committee.
House members voted in favor of SB 1950 last Thursday, but senators did not take up the measure before the spring legislative session ended over the weekend.
SB 1950 provided that doctors could prescribe death-inducing drugs to qualified patients with terminal diseases upon the patient’s request.
State Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, was chief House sponsor of the amended Senate legislation.
“The law includes multiple protections to prevent coercion, including strict eligibility requirements, two separate physician assessments and mandatory counseling on all treatment options. The law makes it a felony to coerce someone to request the medication or to forge a request,” Gabel said.
State Rep. Bill Hauter, R-Morton, a practicing physician, said he objected to assisted suicide legislation being called a sanitary food preparation bill.
“Vote no. Or don’t vote at all. It’s the first time a physician will recommend you go out and take a smoke break,” Hauter said.
Hauter said assisting patients in killing themselves would violate an ancient oath doctors take to “first do no harm.”
Sixty-three House members voted in favor of the bill, 42 voted against and two voted present.
State Rep. Chris Miller, R-Oakland, said legalizing assisted suicide would open a Pandora’s box.
“It tells our most vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, those battling despair that their lives are expendable,” Miller said.
Holmes has proposed aid-in-dying bills each of the last two years. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, co-sponsored SB 1950. Cassidy was one of several legislators who cited stories and messages from constituents.
“We need the equity to be able to choose that option where we live. This bill doesn’t lessen anyone’s control or rob anyone of choice over our lives or at the point when our lives reach an inevitable, unavoidable end that no treatment can improve or reverse. This bill strengthens our control,” Cassidy said.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago asked why lawmakers would normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges.
“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,” Cupich said in a statement.
Kevin Bessler contributed to this story.
