Catholic Medical Association joins lawsuit in Illinois challenging assisted suicide law

By Dan Russo
The Catholic Messenger

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Catholic doctors and other medical professionals in Iowa are among those closely following a lawsuit challenging Illinois’ End of Life Options Act. The law, which took effect Sept. 12, not only permits the practice of assisted suicide, but also has other provisions which violate the conscience rights of religious healthcare personnel and faith-based healthcare facilities, according to supporters of the suit.

On Sept. 12, the Catholic Medical Asso­ciation (CMA) joined lead plaintiff Mary Keen-Kirchoff, M.D., Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Springfield, Illinois, Diocese, a Lutheran nursing home and other plaintiffs in bringing Mary Keen-Kirchoff, M.D., et al v. Treto, Jr. The case, first filed in August, “seeks an injunction against the new law’s unconstitutional violations of conscience rights …”

“The Catholic Medical Association’s decision to join this challenge to Illinois’ assisted suicide law was not difficult,” said Dr. Tim Millea, the Iowa state director for the CMA, in a statement to The Catholic Messenger. “The Vatican and the U.S. Con­ference of Catholic Bishops have made definitive statements opposing assisted suicide and euthanasia, deeming them as ‘intrinsically evil’ actions that ignore the dignity and respect that each person deserves. Compassion for the suffering person is provided by caring for and accompanying them in their difficulties, not by prematurely ending their life.”

Two of the four physicians involved in bringing the case are CMA members, including Dr. Kirchoff. Federal Judge Franklin U. Valderrama has issued a temporary restraining order which prevents Mario Treto, Jr., Secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regula­tion, and the Illinois Department of Public Health, from enforcing the act against the plaintiffs while the lawsuit moves forward.

On Sept. 11, the judge issued another restraining order in a similar case being brought by Cardinal Blasé J. Cupich of Chicago, two orders of Catholic women religious, and an Illinois pharmacist in response to their lawsuit, Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Prince, filed earlier in September, according to OSV news.

On Sept. 16, four Muslim physicians also filed a lawsuit challenging the law called Ali v. Vohra, which has joined others in making its way through the court system.

“The Illinois law is particularly onerous in that it requires physicians to discuss the assisted suicide option with their patients, even if the physician believes it is wrong,” explained Millea, who resides in Davenport, Iowa. “Further, if the physician is opposed to assisted suicide but the patient requests it, the physician is required to refer the patient to someone who will do it. For the physician that disagrees with assisted suicide, those requirements are a violation of their conscience rights. Further, for a committed Catholic physician, their religious freedom rights are violated. In short, their First Amendment rights are ignored. That is the basis of this legal challenge, in Illinois and other states.”

Supporters of legalizing physician-assisted suicide argue the practice offers autonomy to suffering or terminally ill individuals in their final days, but opponents argue such laws disregard the dignity of human life and leave those who are ill or dying vulnerable to coercion, among other concerns, according to the recent report by OSV News’ Kate Scanlon.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church specifically condemns the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as “morally unacceptable” and a violation of the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not kill.”

In a statement issued Dec. 12 when he signed the law, Gov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill., argued the practice offers “freedom and choice at the end of life in the midst of personal heartbreak.”

Millea disagrees with the governor’s assessment and argues a better path is possible.

“When the value of a life is lessened, important groups are at risk, especially the poor, the elderly, and the disabled,” said Millea. “Ethical medicine is intent on treating the person’s problems and refuses to take a short cut and simply eliminate the patient.  Hospice and palliative care is increasingly available and effective and must be supported and expanded so every individual can be confident their doctor will not recommend their death as ‘the best option.’  A physician’s vow to ‘do no harm’ is violated by their participation in assisted suicide, and those who are suffering at the end of life, and their families, are the victims.”

The outcome of these lawsuits has implications outside of Illinois, advocates say. Assisted suicide bills have been introduced every year in the Iowa legislature for at least the past five or six years, according to Millea, and failure to challenge the Illinois act could lead to the spread of the practice.

Attorneys from the St. Thomas More Society (TMS) are representing the plaintiffs in Mary Keen-Kirchoff, M.D., et al v. Treto, Jr. They hope to block enforcement of the act’s mandates permanently.

“(The act) will compel physicians and religious health care facilities that object to speak about the so-called ‘benefits’ of assisted suicide — the law’s own words — and, when asked, to refer patients to someone willing to help them end their lives,” reads a TMS statement on the lawsuit. “It will even require them to allow their own staff to promote assisted suicide inside their walls, and to falsify death certificates to conceal how a patient died. Those who follow their conscience instead risk the loss of a license, a career, and even civil and criminal penalty. For millennia, medicine has been bound by a simple promise: first, do no harm. The physician exists to heal the sick and comfort the dying, never to hasten death artificially … To force a doctor to point a patient toward suicide, or a religious ministry to make its own facilities and staff instruments of it, is to demand that they betray the very conscience and calling that brought them to this work.”