Catholic Nuns Fight Back as Illinois Democrats Force Healthcare Providers to Euthanize Patients | Frank Bergman, Slay News
Catholic nuns are fighting back against Illinois Democrats over a new “assisted suicide” law that will force religious healthcare providers to euthanize patients rather than care for them through natural death.
Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich has joined two orders of Catholic nuns and an Illinois pharmacist in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (EOLOA).
The law was signed by Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker in December 2025 and is scheduled to take effect September 12.
Once the law comes into effect on Saturday, religious care providers will be forced to begin administering lethal injections to patients marked for euthanasia.
The Catholic plaintiffs argue that Illinois is trampling their constitutional religious freedoms by requiring healthcare providers to participate in a process that directly violates their deeply held beliefs about the sanctity of human life.
“The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
“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.”
Catholic Nuns Warn State Is Violating Their Faith
The lawsuit names the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, Illinois Department of Public Health, and Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation as defendants.
Joining Cupich are the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm and the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Both religious orders have dedicated themselves to caring for elderly, sick, and dying people.
Their Catholic faith teaches that human life must be protected from conception until natural death.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
“[T]hose whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect.
“Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible.
“Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons.
“It is morally unacceptable.”
The lawsuit warns that Illinois’s new law threatens that mission by imposing requirements surrounding “assisted suicide” and penalties on healthcare providers who refuse to comply.
“The Gospel calls us to uphold the inviolable dignity and worth of the human person, from life’s first moment to its natural end,” Cupich said.
“As Catholics, we oppose 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.”
‘Their Lives Remain Precious’
The Carmelite Sisters say their mission is built around reassuring elderly and vulnerable residents that their lives retain their value regardless of illness or disability.
“Our residents come to us at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives,” said Mother Mary Rose Heery, prioress general of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm.
“Our vocation is 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.”
Catholic healthcare ministries have cared for the sick, elderly, and dying in Chicago for nearly 175 years, according to Becket.
The Little Sisters of the Poor similarly argue that people should remain free to choose a Catholic home where assisted suicide will not be inserted into their end-of-life care.
“The elderly people who come to our homes are looking for a place where they will be cherished and cared for until natural death,” said Mother Julie Marie, mother provincial of the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
“They should be free to choose that kind of care without having assisted suicide inserted into it by the state.
“We simply want to continue giving them the loving home they came to us for.”
Pharmacist Says Illinois Is Violating His Conscience
Illinois pharmacist Luke Vander Bleek, owner of Fitzgerald Pharmacy, has also joined the constitutional challenge.
Bleek says the law threatens to force him to choose between practicing his profession and obeying his Catholic faith.
“I became a pharmacist because I wanted to help people heal, never to hasten their deaths,” Bleek said.
“But now Illinois wants my pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for suicide in violation of my Catholic beliefs.
“The state shouldn’t force me to choose between serving my neighbors and following my conscience.”
The Catholic lawsuit is not the first legal challenge to Pritzker’s assisted suicide law.
A physician, two disabled patients, and several healthcare advocacy organizations sued Illinois in June, arguing that the law fails to provide adequate safeguards protecting disabled people from discrimination by doctors.
That case raises separate concerns about whether vulnerable patients could face pressure or unequal treatment under the new system.
For the Catholic nuns now taking Illinois to court, however, the issue is fundamental.
Their religious mission is to care for vulnerable people until natural death.
Illinois Democrats are now attempting to impose assisted suicide requirements on institutions whose entire purpose is built around the opposite principle.
The nuns are asking the federal courts to stop the state before the law takes effect.
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🚨First New York. Now Illinois. Another state is trying to force nuns and other Catholic healthcare ministries to betray their faith by facilitating assisted suicide—and this time, Illinois is threatening to punish them for speaking their life-affirming mission.