DIOCESE— Bishop David J. Malloy issued a statement today after Governor JB Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1950 which legalizes medically assisted suicide in the State of Illinois. Bishop Malloy and the Rockford Diocese Life and Evangelization Office have worked for months to mobilize Catholics to oppose this legislation. Catholics have met with legislators personally, written letters, placed phones and sent emails all in an effort to support the dignity of human life and further called on the Governor to veto the bill.
Here is the Statement from Bishop David Malloy:
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
All those who support life in all its stages, especially the most vulnerable, are extremely disappointed in Governor Pritzker’s signing Senate Bill 1950 into law.
This law makes our state among 12 that legalize medically assisted suicide and further entrenches Illinois in support of death over life.
As I said in previous statements, there are many loving alternatives to assisted suicide including increased care for the poor, supporting and promoting programs and care for mental health, increased access to affordable health care and support and access to palliative and hospice services. These services combine the best of medical care with respect for the God-given dignity of those who are suffering or close to death.
We must now turn our efforts to support the programs which offer help for the root causes of catastrophic sickness and those in mental health crisis. We must also work to protect all people from undo pressure to end their lives and promote safeguards to this abhorrent legislation.
Please continue to pray for respect for the dignity of human life, especially for those who seek our love, support and help as their lives draw to a close.
(END)
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of (2280).” The Catechism goes on to teach that “Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God (2281).”
–END–
Illinois Takes Dangerous Path with Legalization of Assisted Suicide
December 12, 2025
When Governor Pritzker signed the physician assisted suicide bill into law, he put Illinois on a dangerous and heartbreaking path—one that legitimizes suicide as a valid solution for life’s challenges. Rather than investing in real end-of-life support such as palliative and hospice care, pain management, and family-centered accompaniment, our state has chosen to normalize killing oneself. This law ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair. It does nothing to ensure patients are offered services, protected from coercion, or surrounded by loved ones when they kill themselves.
Even more alarming, by enacting this law, Illinois is endorsing the death option while claiming compassion. This message will be heard by vulnerable groups not as a balm for the dying but as a societally acceptable alternative to living. Indeed, studies show that where assisted suicide has been made legal, the number of all suicides has risen. How can we urge teens and young adults—knowing suicide is the second-leading cause of death in their age group—not to choose death, while our own laws say that suicide can be a “medical option”? We may fund suicide prevention hotlines, expand suicide prevention programs, and train communities, but those efforts are hollow when we are simultaneously signaling that some lives are too burdensome or too expensive to save. Can we depend on distressed youth and others to understand the difference between their pain and that of the dying?
Governor Pritzker and legislators who supported this legislation had a choice to build a future in which every person, especially the sick and vulnerable, is cared for with dignity, love, and support—or to open the door to a system where death becomes a permissible alternative. With SB 1950 now law, we must speak even more strongly that true compassion means helping people live, not helping them die.
