A coalition of religious sisters has joined Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich in suing the state of Illinois to prevent enforcement of its assisted suicide law.
The law, which was signed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker in December 2025, allows doctors in the state to prescribe lethal doses of medication to patients in order to help them end their own lives. Among other rules, patients must have a terminal illness in order to qualify for receiving help to kill themselves.
The rule has received strong criticism from Catholic bishops in the state.
On Sept. 3, meanwhile, the religious liberty law firm Becket announced that Cupich and two orders of religious sisters had filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to halt enforcement of the law against the Catholic plaintiffs.
The suit, filed in U.S. district court, argues that the sisters — who belong to the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm and the Little Sisters of the Poor — will be forced to either "abandon their religious beliefs regarding the sanctity of life or face significant fines and penalties" if they refuse to participate in the suicide regime.
The suit notes that by Sept. 12, healthcare providers in Illinois, including the sisters through their care homes, will have to proactively discuss the "option" to commit suicide with those in their care. Caregivers will also "have to allow patients to commit suicide in their facilities," the suit says.
The suit argues that the First Amendment prohibits the state from requiring the Catholic caregivers to violate their faith by participating in the suicide regime.
In a statement announcing the filing, Cupich said the Catholic Church "oppose[s] efforts to undermine human dignity by pushing our brothers and sisters toward suicide."
"We pray that the courts will protect our freedom to continue advocating and caring for the sick and dying as our faith demands," he said.
Mother Mary Rose Heery, O. Carm., prioress general of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, said patients in their care "come to us at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives" and that the sisters have a vocation "to give witness to them, through everything we do, that their lives remain precious and that they will never be abandoned."
"Illinois cannot ask us to replace that promise with help ending their lives," she said.
Becket President Mark Rienzi described the suicide law's provisions as "awful."
"The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves," he said, arguing that sick patients "deserve the freedom to seek healing, hope, and accompaniment without the government forcing suicide into the conversation."
This is not the first lawsuit filed against a state assisted suicide measure, nor the first in Illinois.
In August, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki joined a Lutheran nursing home and a group of doctors to sue the state over the assisted suicide law, with the coalition arguing that the state's suicide regime abandons "nearly two millennia of medical practice" while requiring objectors to participate in it.
The state agreed to a temporary block of the law later in the month, though the block only applied to the plaintiffs in that suit.
In July, meanwhile, Rockville Centre Bishop John Barres joined several communities of New York religious sisters in suing the state over its own assisted suicide law. Those plaintiffs also won a temporary block of the state's suicide law.
Separately, groups of disability advocates have filed lawsuits against the suicide laws in New York and Illinois, as well as in Colorado and Delaware, alleging that those laws discriminate against people with disabilities.
