The Archbishop of Chicago, two orders of nuns and a Catholic pharmacist sued the state of Illinois on September 3 over the state’s soon-to-be-enacted assisted suicide law.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Little Sisters of the Poor and pharmacist Luke Vander Bleek filed suit on Thursday, saying that the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act is a violation of their religious beliefs. The suit is asking a federal court to block the law before it comes into force on September 12.
The groups are represented in court by Becket, a law firm focusing on religious freedom.
“The Gospel calls us to uphold the inviolable dignity and worth of the human person, from life’s first moment to its natural end,” said Cardinal Cupich in a press release announcing the case.
He continued: “As Catholics, we oppose efforts to undermine human dignity by pushing our brothers and sisters towards suicide. We pray that the courts will protect our freedom to continue advocating and caring for the sick and dying as our faith demands.”
While the law exempts providers from actually providing lethal medications for assisted suicide, the suit alleges that the law still requires cooperation with the act. The law requires providers to allow their employees to promote assisted suicide or assist with off-site assisted suicides. Under the law, these facilities cannot discipline or fire employees who are promoting or assisting with patient suicide, even if they are acting in violation of their employer’s guidelines, mission or identity.
The law also prohibits medical professionals from discouraging people from taking their own lives via assisted suicide, terming this “misinformation to obstruct access”. Further, the law declares that “medical aid in dying” is not “suicide or assisted suicide”.
Failure to comply with the law is subject to fines, a licence revocation or criminal charges.
For pharmacist Luke Vander Bleek, who owns Fitzgerald Pharmacy in Morrison, Illinois, this could be the end of his livelihood. He says his religious beliefs prevent him from complying with distributing prescriptions of lethal doses of medication for use in assisted suicide.
“I became a pharmacist because I wanted to help people heal, never to hasten their deaths. But now Illinois wants my pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for suicide in violation of my Catholic beliefs,” said Vander Bleek in Thursday’s press release. “The state shouldn’t force me to choose between serving my neighbours and following my conscience.”
“The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves,” Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, said in the release. “It is awful for Illinois to be forcing every sick and dying person within its borders to hear its message of suicide at their lowest moment – regardless of whether they want it or not. Patients deserve the freedom to seek healing, hope and accompaniment without the government forcing suicide into the conversation. The Constitution protects that freedom.”
Last month, a court agreed to hold off on enforcing the law for a group of religious healthcare providers.
That order, however, only applied to Catholic hospitals within the Diocese of Springfield, the Lutheran Care Center and four individual doctors, who filed suit against the state on August 11.
