As of this morning, the assisted suicide bill has not yet reached Governor Pritzker’s desk. However, once it does, he will have 60 days to either veto it or allow it to become law by default. That means your prayers, your voice, and your continued engagement are critically important right now.
Bulletin Insert: One practical way to help is by spreading the word. Ask your pastor to share this bulletin insert with your congregation. Every phone call, every email, every prayer matters in defending a culture of life in the Land of Lincoln.
Background
This pro-death legislation (SB 1950) barely scraped by in the Illinois General Assembly. It wasn’t a result of overwhelming support — far from it. We may never know just how much arm-twisting, logrolling, and backroom deal-making it took to ram this bill through the Illinois Senate on October 31st. But God does…
Despite the narrative proponents are spinning, there is no public mandate for this dangerous policy. In fact, witness slips opposing the bill outnumbered those in support by a margin of four to one.
Even the Chicago Tribune — not exactly known for siding with pro-life conservatives — published an editorial urging Governor Pritzker to veto this bill. It’s striking that even the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board noted “an element of the macabre in the fact that this bill passed on Halloween” — a day our culture now fixates on death, darkness, and the underworld.
The editors lay out their concerns in a persuasive Op/Ed:
First, the safeguards this bill sets forth may seem like strong protections, but we fear they would soon become viewed as barriers to access. That’s what has sometimes played out in other states. For example, a few years ago California amended its rules to shorten the waiting period between a patient’s first and second oral request from 15 days to 48 hours.
One of the most persuasive arguments against medically assisted death, in our view, came from advocates who spoke on behalf of people with disabilities. We also took particular note of a Harvard study that surveyed doctors and found that 82.4% of those physicians believed that “people with significant disability have worse quality of life than non-disabled people.” The study also found that only 40.7% of physicians were “very confident” in their ability to provide equal quality care to patients with disabilities. Those advocating for this community view these results as worrying, questioning whether some in the medical community have an inherent bias against their constituency. We say that’s a fair concern.
We also found it troubling that so many seriously ill people may pursue such a path for fear of becoming a financial burden to their family. Their worry is understandable, but we believe you can’t put a price tag on every moment you get with your loved ones.
And, yes, we are also acutely aware of the potential for the circumstances eligible for physician-assisted death to expand once it’s made legal. Consider Canada. That country’s aid-in-dying rules originally required a terminal condition for approval, but a 2021 expansion removed the “reasonably foreseeable death” requirement for some cases. Assisted dying accounted for 1 in 20 deaths in Canada as of 2023.
In the Netherlands, Zoraya ter Beek, a 28-year-old woman with depression, autism and a personality disorder, shared with The Free Press her plans to pursue euthanasia because she was “tired of living.” At age 29, in May 2024, she made good on her commitment. The Netherlands allows for euthanasia in cases of psychiatric disorders.
Compassion should guide end-of-life policy, but compassion also demands caution. Other nations show how swiftly a narrow exception can expand. Illinois should focus on easing pain, not authorizing physicians to hasten death.
Contact Governor JB Pritzker (webform link) or call his office at: 217-782-6830. Urge him to protect people when they are vulnerable by vetoing the assisted suicide bill.
Take ACTION: Please pray that God would bring this dangerous agenda to a halt in Illinois. Ask the Lord to convict the heart and mind of Governor Pritzker — that he would see the grave consequences of normalizing suicide and refuse to sign SB 1950 into law. May God stir his conscience, overwhelm him with truth, and lead him to protect every vulnerable life in our state.
More ACTION: Please click HERE to email Governor JB Pritzker today and urge him to veto SB 1950. Tell him Illinois must protect the vulnerable — not promote assisted suicide as a so-called “solution.”
Please also call the Governor’s office in Springfield at 217-782-6830 or in Chicago at 312-814-2121.
Read more about this troubling proposal HERE.
For a list of videos addressing this topic, please click HERE.
Thank you for taking action to help protect our family members, friends and neighbors!
