U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama expanded an order last week in the Northern District of Illinois.
The order blocks the state from enforcing its assisted-suicide law against religious health care workers.
The Christian Post reported that the expanded order now covers all members of four Catholic and Christian health care associations.
Covered doctors, nurses, hospitals, and therapists no longer face enforcement of the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act while the lawsuit continues.
Plaintiffs say being forced to promote assisted suicide, or to refer patients for it, would violate their faith in the sanctity of human life.
The original plaintiffs are Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, the Lutheran Care Center, and several Catholic physicians.
The Thomas More Society represents them. After Valderrama’s first order covering those plaintiffs, the associations joined the case.
They moved just before the law was set to take effect. The groups entered through an amended complaint filed Sept. 10.
They are the Illinois Catholic Health Association, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, the National Association of Catholic Nurses, and the Catholic Psychotherapy Association.
Valderrama then expanded the earlier non-enforcement order to every member of those associations.
The same order also blocks parts of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act as to those providers.
The challenged provisions require health care providers to tell patients about the “benefits” of assisted suicide.
They also require providers to transfer or refer patients seeking it to medical professionals willing to provide it.
That is not a paperwork dispute. It is a command to speak, steer, and participate.
The legal group said the plaintiffs could face fines of up to $10,000 if the laws were enforced against them.
It also warned of lost licenses and “potential criminal prosecution.”
Refuse the state’s script, and the cost could be a career. That is the leverage Illinois built into the statute.
Plaintiffs allege the laws violate the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Thomas More Society issued a statement Thursday on how far the expanded order now reaches.
The group said the Illinois Catholic Health Association’s Catholic hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers, and pharmacies represent more than 95% of Catholic health care institutions in the state.
That fight over compelled participation is the same core dispute in a court fight blocking Illinois from punishing Catholic hospitals over assisted suicide rules.
Peter Breen is executive vice president and head of litigation at the Thomas More Society. He said:
“Three weeks ago, Illinois was poised to force doctors, nurses, and Catholic hospitals to choose between their consciences and their licenses.”
Breen also said Catholic and Christian health care providers, including hospitals, nursing homes, physicians, nurses, and therapists, seek to “heal” not “harm.”
He said:
“This order lifts that threat for nearly every Catholic health care institution in the state and for the members of the state’s largest Catholic and Christian medical associations. We will keep fighting until that protection is permanent.”
Last month, Valderrama issued a separate order on the same statutes.
That order barred Illinois officials from enforcing the laws against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, a Catholic pharmacist, and groups of Catholic nuns.
Catholic nurses and nuns keep landing in the middle of these mandates, as in a related case that shielded Catholic nuns from New York’s assisted-suicide mandate while that lawsuit proceeds.
Valderrama’s expanded Illinois order will stay in effect until the court rules on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction.
A preliminary injunction would block enforcement of the laws while the case moves forward. The current shield is real. It is not the last word.
Breen tied the case to a long record of care, not a new political pose. He said:
“[F]or generations, [they] have cared for the sick and dying in keeping with their faith.”
The people named in this case run hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and counseling rooms. Their claim is simple. They will treat the dying. They will not help kill them.
Clinicians have had to make that same kind of stand when bosses tried to conscript their conscience, including a Michigan hospital payout to a physician assistant fired over religious objections.
Peter Breen, the Thomas More Society’s head of litigation, said:
“Illinois has no right or authority to coerce them into abandoning that mission…. For now, this order protects their freedom to continue caring for patients with dignity, without the threat of losing their licenses or their livelihoods.”
The order does not repeal the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act. It stops Illinois officials from enforcing that law, and parts of the conscience statute, against the covered plaintiffs and association members.
Bishop Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, Catholic physicians, and the four associations still have to win a preliminary injunction. Then they still have to win the case.
Until then, the state’s demand sits on ice for a huge share of Catholic care in Illinois, if the Thomas More Society’s account of the association’s reach holds.
Hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers, pharmacies, nurses, and therapists are inside that umbrella. So are members of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and the Catholic Psychotherapy Association.
The unanswered question is duration. The court has not yet said whether the non-enforcement will last through trial.
Breen already framed the next step. His group wants the protection to be permanent, not a stopgap that expires with the next filing.
That is how these conscience fights now get done. Not by a quiet exemption written into the statute, but by a federal judge telling the state it cannot make healers carry out a death law.
The same constitutional ground has been reinforced in Washington, including a Trump DOJ update to religious liberty guidance after a decade of Supreme Court wins.
Illinois still has its statute. Covered Catholic and Christian providers, for now, still have their licenses and their mission.
If treating the dying now depends on a temporary court order, the defect is the mandate, not the people who refuse to help a patient die.
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