Editorial written by Chicago Tribune Editorial Board
Last Friday, the Illinois General Assembly narrowly passed a law allowing terminally ill people to end their own lives.
The legislation now awaits Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature. If he signs it, Illinois will join 11 other states (and the District of Columbia) that allow terminally ill adults to choose when and how they want to end their own lives. There’s an element of the macabre in the fact that this bill passed on Halloween, but we digress.
In spring 2024, we met with compassionate voices on both sides of the issue and were sympathetic to their stories. 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.
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.
After that meeting, we urged the legislature to leave this issue alone. Now, we urge the governor not to sign this bill into law.
Here’s how “right to die” would work if he does:
Anyone wishing to voluntarily end their life must be an adult and a resident of Illinois with a terminal illness and a prognosis of six months or less to live.
The legislation sets certain guardrails that are intended to prevent abuse and make sure all requests are voluntary. This includes waiting periods, physician review, informed consent requirements, and mental capacity evaluations. The state would have to collect data showing patient demographics and frequency of medical-assisted death, among other things.
Providers, as well as individual doctors and nurses, wouldn’t have to participate in ending a patient’s life if they object conscientiously. That, at least, is a good thing.
Still, we have many concerns. 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 one 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.
Pritzker said Monday that he’s unsure whether he’ll sign the bill. We hope he vetoes it.
