A federal lawsuit filed Thursday challenges a new Illinois law set to go into effect in September that would allow doctors to prescribe medication to terminally ill people to end their own lives.

Two disabled patients, a doctor and various disability and patients’ rights organizations allege in the lawsuit that the state’s controversial End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act “upends millennia of protections for Illinois patients in their relationships with their doctors by ending the ethical obligation to do no harm.”

The suit names Democratic Gov. JB. Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Public Health and its director, Dr. Sameer Vohra, as defendants. It alleges the law violates federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with disabilities from discrimination, and the Affordable Care Act, which is designed to help manage healthcare costs. The suit also alleges the new law violates the plaintiffs’ equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment.

A similar lawsuit filed Thursday targets New York state officials, including Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, as that state’s medical-aid-in-dying law takes effect in August.

The Illinois suit contends the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, or EOLA, changes the legal foundation of every doctor-patient relationship, eliminating patients’ “historic legal right” to hold caregivers to a do-no-harm-obligation and replacing it with a standard permitting doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to help patients die by suicide.

“EOLA embarks on this reckless experiment with no guardrails and no adequate legal framework to prevent the erroneous taking of life,” the suit alleges. “Without any such safeguards, or objective parameters for eligibility, there will be an inevitable evolution from EOLA’s ‘right to die’ to a ‘duty to die’ for individuals whose disabilities are a costly burden or who lack the resources for extended medical care.”

The lawsuit also claims that people with life-threatening disabilities, “as a discrete class,” will be highly vulnerable to pressure from insurers, hospitals and doctors to consent to ending their lives prematurely.

The state Department of Public Health on Thursday declined to comment on the suit, citing the pending litigation. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Pritzker signed the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act into law last year, ending a long-running debate over whether terminally ill patients — those given up to six months to live by their doctors — should be allowed to ingest life-ending prescription medication.

Illinois joined at least 10 other states and Washington, D.C., in permitting medical aid in dying. Pritzker said in signing the law that it would help terminally ill patients “avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives.”

Opponents, however, argue it is immoral to give someone the option to take their own life. Pope Leo XIV last year came out against the measure, acknowledging he spoke with Pritzker about it while the bill was being reviewed by the governor’s office, and he said he was “very disappointed” to later learn Pritzker signed it into law.

Under the law, an eligible patient — at least 18 years old and an Illinois resident — “may orally request a prescription for medication” from their attending physician and it must be documented. The patient must also request the medication in writing to their physician after making the oral request. But the patient must also make a second oral request five days after the initial one.

The written request for the medication must also be witnessed by two people, “who attest that to the best of their knowledge” the patient is acting voluntarily and is mentally sound, according to the law, which also lists various limitations as to who can act as witnesses.

When the patient makes the second oral request, the attending physician must offer the patient an opportunity to rescind the request, the law says. An attending physician must also “provide sufficient information to a patient regarding all appropriate end-of-life care options,” including comfort care, hospice care, palliative care and pain control, as well as the foreseeable risks and benefits of each.

Several of the organizations that joined in the Illinois lawsuit include the United Spinal Association, National Council on Independent Living and the Progress Center for Independent Living. Another one of the plaintiffs is Ebony Payne, a quadriplegic who is paralyzed from the neck down and has repeatedly been in serious life-threatening situations in hospitals, including within the last two weeks when she was in an emergency room and then the intensive care unit of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Another plaintiff is Pam Heavens, who is also disabled. She was born with cerebral palsy and her support needs have increased with age, the lawsuit states. She now requires a motorized wheelchair, and any lapse in her current medical support, or even placement in a lower tier of medical care, would make Heavens likely to die well before six months — qualifying her as an eligible patient under the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, according to the lawsuit.

Another plaintiff, Dr. Nooshig Luz Salvador, treats patients with disabilities, including those at the final stages of their lives.

“In her own experience and expert medical opinion, such individuals often upon receiving a devastating diagnosis have no adequate warning of the diagnosis and are in a state of shock,” the lawsuit states. “They may also be under the care of surgeons who are inadequately trained to communicate end-of-life options that will ease suffering and protect a genuine quality of life for such patients.”

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