Contact: Lena Parsons, 773-425-0725
[email protected]
CHICAGO, September 10, 2026 — Illinois will begin implementing the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (physician-assisted suicide) on September 12, 2026. Access Living is opposed to assisted suicide and is deeply concerned about the risks this law poses to people with disabilities.
The disability community across Illinois raised serious concerns throughout the legislative debate over assisted suicide. Those concerns were not based on opposition to individual autonomy, patient choice, or compassionate end-of-life care. They were rooted in the lived experiences of people with disabilities navigating a healthcare system in which access to treatment, home and community-based services, mental health care, palliative care, accessible housing, and other essential supports is too often determined by cost, availability, insurance coverage, and systemic disability bias.
Illinois is implementing assisted suicide at a time when the healthcare safety net faces extraordinary threats. Federal Medicaid cuts threaten billions of dollars in healthcare funding for Illinois and could cause hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans to lose coverage. People with disabilities continue to struggle to obtain sufficient home and community-based services, direct support professionals, and other supports necessary to live independently in our communities.
As implementation begins, Access Living will continue monitoring the law’s impact on people with disabilities and advocate for stronger protections. Access Living renews its call for the General Assembly and Governor’s Office to enact safeguards such as a mandatory independent mental health evaluation and call on state officials to collect and publicly report meaningful data that can identify disparities, coercion, failures of informed consent, and circumstances in which inadequate healthcare or social supports may influence a person’s decision.
People with disabilities deserve dignity at the end of life; however, dignity requires more than the option to die. It requires meaningful access to the services, supports, healthcare, and community integration necessary to live.
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