Call Illinois Governor Pritzker. Tell him to veto assisted suicide bill SB 1950

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker

Olivia Olander reported for the Chicago Tribune on November 3 that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has not yet decided if he will sign or veto the recently passed assisted suicide bill. Olander reported:

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday said he was still deciding whether he’d sign legislation that would permit doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives, after the bill narrowly passed the General Assembly last week.

“It was something that I didn’t expect and didn’t know it was going to be voted on, so we’re examining it even now,” Pritzker said.

We need everyone to call Illinois Governor JB Pritzker at 312-814-2121 or 312-814-2122 and tell him to veto assisted suicide bill SB 1950. Some talking points include:

• Legalizing assisted suicide gives doctors the right in law to be involved with causing the death of their patients at the most vulnerable time of one's life.
• Assisted suicide is not about freedom or choice but is a form of cultural and medical abandonment, people need care not death.
• A caring culture supports good end of life care and opposes assisting suicides.
• Suicide is always a tragedy. Legalizing assisted suicide enables other people to be directly involved with the suicide act.
  

If you have a personal story, please share it. It is important to remind the Governor that the disability community opposes assisted suicide because legalizing assisted suicide provides death rather than living with dignity.

Olander further reported that: 

Speaking to reporters at an unrelated event at the Philip J. Rock Center and School in Glen Ellyn for deaf-blind children, Pritzker signaled an openness to the advocates’ arguments but was noncommittal about signing the legislation into law. 

Assisted suicide Bill SB9 passed on April 9, 2025 by a vote of 8 to 3 in the Senate Executive Committee. SB9 stalled but was renewed when the sponsor gutted the Sanitary Food Preparation Act (SB 1950) and replaced the language with the assisted suicide bill. It is ironic that a bill that enables physicians to prescribe lethal poison cocktails to kill patients was attached to a food preparation safety bill.

Once assisted suicide is legal, the assisted suicide lobby will work to expand the law. The original assisted suicide bill is designed to pass in the legislature. Once passed incremental extensions will follow.