SPRINGFIELD – Senator Linda Holmes’ two-year pursuit to allow terminally ill adults in Illinois to choose to end their suffering on their own terms was passed by the Illinois State Senate Friday.

Senate Bill 1950 would allow a qualified patient with a terminal disease to request a physician to prescribe aid-in-dying medication, allowing the patient to end their own life in a peaceful manner, if and when, they choose.

“I lost both of my parents to terminal cancers, and can’t forget the helpless feeling of being unable to relieve their suffering,” said Holmes (D-Aurora). “This measure is about allowing qualified, terminally ill patients an option to consider ending their pain and distress.”

The bill would include multiple specific measures to ensure a patient is eligible for the program, and protect them from potential coercion by anyone who may attempt to take advantage of the patient. It would let adults who are 18 or older – whose terminal illness diagnosis gives them six months or less to live – to receive prescribed medicine to end their lives.

Patients would be assessed by physicians and mental health professionals to ensure they are of sound mind, and only the patient can request this aid – not a surrogate, proxy or via an advance health directive. Under Senate Bill 1950, no physician, health care provider or pharmacist would be required to participate in the law.

Senate Bill 1950 passed the Senate and heads to the governor’s desk for final approval.

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