Cardinal Blase Cupich has added his high-profile name to a federal lawsuit challenging Illinois’ assisted suicide law, arguing that the practice is unconstitutional and “denies the choice of a dignified death” to Catholics who want to die naturally.
Cupich’s suit is one of at least three filed ahead of the law’s effective date: Sept. 12. A federal judge is expected to rule on a request for a preliminary injunction on one of the suits on Friday. Cupich on Thursday joined two orders of nuns and an Illinois pharmacist in seeking to block the law via a permanent injunction.
Illinois joined 11 other states that have passed so-called ‘right-to-die’ legislation, which is opposed by many religious leaders and disability rights activists.
“Where the current Pope, along with Cardinal Cupich, has commanded that Illinois Catholics must ‘respect the sacredness of life from the very beginning to the very end’ by not participating in assisted suicide, the state has no business forcing them to do just that,” states the suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Cupich, who leads the Archdiocese of Chicago, was among those who vocally opposed the law last year and accused Gov. JB Pritzker of putting “Illinois on a dangerous and heartbreaking path — one that legitimizes suicide as a valid solution for life’s challenges.”
The plaintiffs say they want a federal judge to stop the state from providing counsel and information about assisted suicide — and from helping a patient qualify or fill a prescription for “suicide drugs,” among other requests.
The law at issue was signed by Pritzker in December 2025 and will allow people 18 or older to request a fatal medication if they’ve been diagnosed by two physicians with an illness that will result in death within six months. Patients will have to make a series of oral and written requests themselves — not through a guardian, surrogate, advance legal document or other proxy — with witnesses attesting.
Physicians will have to confirm the patient is “of sound mind,” and inform them of other end-of-life options such as hospice and palliative care. And if prescribed a life-ending drug, patients would administer it themselves. Health care providers aren’t required to participate.
Despite that opt-out process, the plaintiffs say the law is unconstitutional, in part because the First Amendment “requires the government to respect and stay out of matters of governance within religious institutions.” The suit says the Constitution’s protection of the free exercise of religion prohibits the government “from burdening the sincere religious beliefs of Plaintiffs and the patients they serve,” and also prohibits the government from enacting legal burdens that fall on religious adherents.
It also claims the Constitution’s protections against compelled speech prevent the government from forcing Catholic doctors and nurses “to speak the government’s preferred, supportive message of assisted suicide.” And it states the law violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Equal Protection Clause and the Supremacy Clause. Another one of the three suits also claims the law discriminates against people with disabilities by not providing them with sufficient protections against abuse of the practice.
“… In passing the Act, Illinois has stripped that very choice away from the Sisters and their patients — denying the choice of a dignified death to the many residents of Illinois who, following their sincere religious beliefs, wish to die naturally in the Sisters’ faith-filled homes, secure in the knowledge that they will not be urged to consider cutting short their life through suicide,” the suit says.
The suit also takes issue with medical providers having to inform and counsel patients about their options — although the law specifies that providers provide that information only if a patient requests end-of-life medications. And it points out that physicians, mental health professionals, and pharmacists will have to participate in a multi-step process should patients choose end-of-life drugs.
It also claims allowing patients to commit suicide will jeopardize their federal health care funding, like Medicare and Medicaid — although federal law already prohibits federal taxpayer money from being used to fund or administer the practice.
Plaintiffs include the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm’s St. Patrick’s Residence; Little Sisters of the Poor, Chicago Province; Little Sisters of the Poor — Palatine; Cupich; Luke Vander Bleek, a Catholic pharmacist from Morrison and Fitzgerald Pharmacy, a pharmacy in Morrison. The suit’s defendants are Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Terry Prince,; Illinois Department of Public Health Director Sameer Vohra and Mario Treto Jr., Secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
The Illinois Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.