On Friday, October 31, 2025, no treats were given by the Illinois legislature to the disability community—around 3:00 am, they voted to pass SB 1950, the "End of Life Options Act," an assisted suicide bill that was a trick, hidden as an amendment to an unrelated food safety bill.

The disability community did everything we could to oppose SB 1950, but despite our unity & the fact that we’re the largest minority in the country, we were unheard by most Illinois lawmakers. Patient or Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) bills are also called MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) & have harmed our community, & while they are discussed by supporters as giving us more "options," the reality is that most people exercising this "option" are disabled, chronically ill, & low-income--our most vulnerable marginalized communities. We’re incredibly grateful to Access Living & the Patient's Rights Action Fund (PRAF) for leading the opposition to SB 1950, and thousands more people signed witness slips opposing the bill than those who supported it—before October, there were about 560 in support, with close to 6,000 opposing. Access Living issued a statement about the harms of PAS bills, which you can read here.

10 Minutes A Day & our partner organization, DIYabled are intersectional, disability led & focused nonprofits, & we opposed this bill, working with a diverse group of stakeholders in Illinois to help make sure the disability community, which has shown a virtual consensus in opposition to PAS bills at local, state, & federal levels, was taken into account by legislators, as we’re the ones most directly impacted by SB 1950. DIYabled is a 501(c)(3) charity that focuses on promoting creativity & art in the disability community. 10 Minutes A Day concentrates on civic participation & ways to support & protect disabled people. We came together because we believe the combination of art & grassroots activism, particularly to oppose ableism, is a helpful way to find joy, vibrance, diversity, & support within the disability community. We’re grateful for our partnership every day & excited about upcoming activities we have planned, seeking to provide accessible, inclusive places to meet disabled people where they're at.

Although a "Right to Die" bills might sound good in theory, the way they’ve been implemented in Canada & various states has by denying chronically ill, low-income communities healthcare, then suggesting those communities have the "right" to "choose" to die, which insurers & other payers seem to embrace as a way to avoid providing healthcare to patients with complex or challenging health conditions. During our time with the Illinois Coalition to Oppose PAS, we've learned disturbing details about PAS, such as:

• Non-terminally ill patients have been inaccurately re-labeled "terminal," so they would qualify for PAS, which resulted in a woman with a curable eating disorder almost taking her life after being given an incorrect “terminal” diagnosis. The patient would have otherwise been too young for PAS, & when the topic came up, she did NOT feel she had a choice--she felt coerced into PAS. Her father stepped in & saved her life at the time. Years later, she planned to go public & warn policymakers about the harms of PAS laws.Tragically, she passed away about a week before she could share her story about her real wishes & how she was coerced.

• SB 1950 raises grave ethical concerns, as its process is far less transparent than HIPAA or other privacy measures. As Access Living explains here, "[T[he Illinois Department of Public Health would not monitor the use of PAS. There is no system for audits or investigations, and rather, the PAS proposal relies on self-reported data. If no one’s watching, how do we protect people from being coerced, rushed, or misdiagnosed? According to the National Council on Disability, all legal 'safeguards' generally have a workaround—which means they are not safeguards at all."                      
•  If SB 1950 is signed into law by Governor Pritzker, who is running for re-election, there is no meaningful way to investigate whether a patient was coerced into committing suicide, from our analysis, research, & close collaboration with our community & other disability rights organizations.
• The disability community is one of the main targets of PAS, but we were not heard by most of our legislators. The ACLU of Illinois supported SB 1950, claiming it was about bodily autonomy, but they assumed PAS is a choice--it isn't a true "choice" because tour healthcare system is broken, & we don’t have equal access to alternatives that aren’t fatal, such as quality palliative care, hospice, & life-saving treatments.
• Many health insurance plans would prefer not to cover life-saving alternatives--they'd rather save money than save a life. A founder of the PAS movement  told us the quiet part out loud when he said "[E]conomics , not the question of broadened liberties or increased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau of acceptable practice.”
• PAS is particularly risky for people with intellectual disabilities, as family members, guardians, or assisted living facilities may give the lethal medications for PAS to a disabled person, even in cases where someone may not understand or be told that what they are about to ingest will end their life. As a 2025 law review noted, “[R]esearch suggests that even well-meaning family members may suggest PAS based on the family member’s perception that the patient is suffering or experiencing a poor quality of life. … This does not reflect the patient’s autonomy.”
• Insurers will have the ability to deny life-saving & life-sustaining treatments to non-terminal patients, suggesting that patients consider PAS for a minimal or no copay, instead. This is a form of coercion, & it is documented. Doctors in other "Right to Die" states were shocked to find that life-saving treatments they requested for patients were denied, with insurers expressly suggesting PAS as an "alternative."
• In Oregon, a "Right to Die" state of over 25 years, only 4% of patients purportedly requesting PAS were referred for psychiatric evaluations. There are no requirements in SB 1950 that such an evaluation occur prior to a clinician prescribing medication to end a patient's life. There has never been an investigation into whether or not a PAS was truly voluntary in Oregon in the decades of it being a "Right to Die" state, which demonstrates how difficult it would be for a patient's loved ones to prove coercion. Illinois SB 1950 is worse--medical forms & paperwork about patients who end their lives via PAS that would be permitted to be seen in any other instance of questionable medical conduct can’t be accessed. No one can obtain the documentation to find out if an allegedly terminal patient voluntarily requested & qualified for PAS.
• According to the American Medical Association’s Council on Ethics, the AMA opposes PAS because "Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks." These risks & inability to control the process were noted by disability rights advocates who opposed SB 1950, & Access Living mentions them here.
• Suicide recently became one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States, per CDC data. When a government passes a PAS law, suicides increase in general, which is add odds with the conventional wisdom that suicide indicates distress & is a permanent tragic "solution" for a problem that is treatable.
• The National Council on Disability released a report in 2019 titled, "The Dangers of Assisted Suicide Laws,” noting that there’s "a double standard in suicide prevention efforts where people with disabilities are not referred for mental health treatment when seeking assisted suicide, while people without disabilities receive such referrals." This puts people with mental health conditions at greater risk for being coerced & with no requirement for a psychiatric evaluation, coupled with no paper trail, it may be impossible to determine whether people with mental illnesses are targeted by insurers & other payers for PAS, as a way to save money.
• For Illinois residents who do NOT have terminal conditions, insurers can suddenly drop successful alternate treatments out of their formularies, & nothing in SB 1950 prevents that--in fact, the bill would only offer a range of treatment options to patients who are purportedly terminal. However, as the National Council on Disability discovered in a federal evaluation & because of problematic language in SB 1950,  patients with chronic non-terminal health conditions &/or disabilities may lose coverage for life-saving alternatives because insurers push assisted suicide to save money.
• As PRAF explains, it's very hard to determine what patients & conditions are actually terminal, which SB 1950 defines as having six months or less to live. PRAF states, "A six-month prognosis for death is extremely difficult to predict accurately, with many patients living far beyond the six months. A major study of physician prognoses in Chicago revealed that of 468 predictions, only 20% were accurate in predicting when death would occur. In another study, “No group accurately predicted the length of patient survival more than 50% of the time.” If doctors are wrong about whether patients are terminal 50-80% of the time, it's not worth it--even if they were right 99% of the time, the 1% of Illinois residents who could be inaccurately told their conditions are terminal may be pushed into making an irreversible decision—a tragedy for those patients who were inaccurately diagnosed & for the loved ones they may leave behind.
• Laws like SB 1950 may start with terminally ill people, but it often doesn't end there. In Canada, once PAS was allowed for terminally ill patients, the government followed up with policies to allow people who don't have terminal conditions to "choose" PAS, & any of the following reasons have been considered adequate to push PAS onto non-terminal individuals: mental illness, chronic illnesses that are not life-threatening, & even housing instability. In 2021 alone, Canda reportedly “saved” $86.9 million in one year from PAS. They do not seem to be as concerned for how many lives were saved (or taken away).
• We’ve encountered many patients who are not terminal but have chronic, treatable health conditions & who have been steered into taking their lives—it seems that Canada is more likely to invest in providing enough medicine for a patient to die, but not enough to live. 5% of deaths in Canada now occur because of PAS. 

Some people mention countries like Denmark & Switzerland & that they have "Right to Die" laws, but the situation isn’t comparable here--the Nordic countries rank among the happiest & healthiest in the world, & they invest heavily in their residents' lives & health. In the United States, Medicaid, SNAP, & Medicare funds have been gutted & threatened by the federal government, & Illinoisians will see increased costs & sales taxes from this year’s veto session, but the legislature cut essential public health programs earlier this session.

Please contact Governor JB Pritzker to ask him to veto SB 1950--if he wants to be re-elected, he needs to know the seriousness of SB 1950 & damage it will do to a community that has already been targeted & harmed in many ways. The bill barely passed the Senate, with a final vote of 30-27, with 2  members not voting. It would take a 3/5^th vote by the Illinois legislature to override a veto, so the ball is in Governor Pritzker's court, & constituents should speak up to help ensure that SB 1950 does not become law. It may have sounded good hypothetically, but in practice, it would deeply harm the disability community. National disability rights organizations oppose PAS—they know "bodily autonomy" sounds nice, but it doesn't mean anything if healthcare is underfunded & the options for treatment are inaccessible. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies expire at the end of 2025 if Congress doesn't act, & because of the government shutdown, the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits to avoid starvation have, for the first time in history, had their benefits withheld. Efforts to gut public health, nutrition, & disability rights have occurred simultaneously, leaving Americans without essential healthcare because of the shutdown & standoff on ACA subsidies, no SNAP benefits, & the beginning of the open enrollment period for the ACA & Medicare. SB 1950 would add another layer of suffering for our biggest national minority—a group that is already under attack.

It may sound good to support PAS, but SB 1950 will exacerbate existing healthcare inequalities within disability community. Where PAS is legal, we’ve encountered countless patients with chronic, non-terminal conditions, who were told by doctors, insurers, & even government assistance agencies that they should consider "ending their suffering" by dying. SB 1950 offers insurance companies or other payers an easy way to stop providing healthcare in the name of profit. If patients were given access to every healthcare modality--including those that could prolong their lives, it might be different, but that is not the case. On a regular basis, members of the disability community have reached out to explain that they were being denied pain care or other essential treatments to survive & steered towards taking their lives. This is not healthcare equity.

Thank you to Access Living, PRAF, & the many disability advocates & stakeholders who’ve fought so hard to prevent Illinois from becoming a "Right to Die" state.

Please keep fighting by doing any of these things:

(1). Contact JB Pritzker here, or you call his Constituent Affairs Helpline at: 217-782-0244 (for deaf or hard of hearing, TTY: 888-261-3336 ), & to oppose SB 1950.

Sample call script: "Hello, I’m an Illinois resident reaching out to ask Governor Pritzker to veto SB 1950, the "End of Life Options Act." There aren’t safeguards to prevent coercion or any agency oversight to stop insurers & others from weaponizing it to kill disabled people who do not really want to die. Please veto this bill to make sure disabled constituents aren't harmed by the dangers that local, state, & national disability rights organizations identified. The American Medical Association opposes assisted suicide because although it might sound good in theory, in practice, it’s extremely dangerous. The National Council on Disability did a study that demonstrates how these laws’ intended safeguards have proven ineffective, & there’s no oversight for abuses or mistakes. Please veto SB 1950 to protect our largest national minority— over 70 million American adults identify as disabled, & those people become more vulnerable when assisted suicide is legal. Thank you." 

(2). Reach out to PRAF here or email us at info@10MinutesADay.org to connect & talk about possible next steps. Thank you!

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