Ebony Payne asks the question Illinois politicians should've asked before Gov. JB Pritzker signed the state's physician-assisted suicide law: what happens when a disabled person is tired, sick, isolated, depressed, or treated as too expensive to keep alive?
Payne, a Chicago woman who is quadriplegic, is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the Illinois End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act before it takes effect Sept. 12.
The suit also includes Pam Heavens, United Spinal Association, National Council on Independent Living, Not Dead Yet, Institute for Patients' Rights, Progress Center for Independent Living, Chicago ADAPT, and Dr. Nooshig Luz Salvador. It names Pritzker and Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, in their official capacities. From Capital News Illinois:
The End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, or EOLA, will allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to a terminal patient if they meet certain qualifications and make two oral requests at least five days apart. The law was passed in October 2025 and signed by the governor in December.
One of the plaintiffs is Ebony Payne, a Chicagoan who is quadriplegic. Payne was one of the opponents to the bill prior to its passage and has continued to advocate against it.
“For people with disabilities overall, I don’t think it’s a safe bet, because just like me, anybody could have an infection and fall prey to doctors who are not as scrupulous as others,” Payne said, referring to an infection she had that led her to tell her doctor she “didn’t want to live anymore.”
“Many, many people who can’t or don’t have these opportunities to speak up for themselves … hopefully I do a well enough job to help their voice be heard, especially in situations like this,” Payne said.
Illinois calls the law compassionate; supporters say it applies only to adults with a terminal illness expected to cause death within six months, requires two physicians to agree, and demands mental capacity, written and oral requests, and patient self-administration.
The governor's office also says coercion or forgery is a felony and no doctor has to participate.
Those safeguards sound reassuring until life turns hard, money gets short, and a vulnerable patient hears, in polished medical language, that death is now one of the menu options.
Payne's fear isn't theoretical; she's spoken about an infection that led her to mention to a doctor that she didn't want to live. Her mother had power of attorney and could speak for her when she couldn't speak for herself.
Under Illinois' law, family notice isn't required, and there's no appeal process once an eligible patient proceeds.
Illinois officials insist disability alone doesn't qualify anyone for assisted suicide, which I guess is fine, but disability-rights advocates are warning about a deeper danger.
A patient without a disability who talks about suicide is usually offered prevention, counseling, and protection.
A patient with a serious disability and a terminal label may be offered a prescription that ends life.
The law may call both patients equal, but the bedside reality may not. From Just the News:
Similar laws have been passed in 13 states across the country, with many also being challenged in court.
Ernest Galvan, a lawyer representing the group in its lawsuit against Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Health and its director, told The Center Square the group is challenging the law for its lack of compliance with the U.S. Constitution and Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The problem with that under federal disability law and under Illinois disability law is that it creates a two-track system, a separate and an unequal system of medical and mental health care for persons with disabilities,” Galvan said.
Theo Braddy, executive director for the National Council on Independent Living – a plaintiff organization in the lawsuit – shared a different argument against the law, focused on morality.
“People like myself become disabled and all of a sudden we don't have those supports. And then someone says to us when we're depressed and isolated that ‘we have a way out for you, which is medical assistance in dying – or assisted suicide,’’ Braddy said. “ What makes you think that that option would not be something that people will go for?”
Braddy continued by saying that he feels society often treats people with disabilities as a burden who aren’t worth paying for, and contends that other solutions exist to help people with disabilities nearing the end of their life.
The lawsuit argues that Illinois has created a system with weak oversight, poor protection against pressure, and too much discretion placed in private hands.
A full mental health exam is required only if the attending doctor sees a reason for one. After the prescription is written, the medication can be filled and taken later, away from the doctor, away from family, and away from any final check on coercion, despair, or fear.
Canada offers the warning Illinois shouldn't ignore. In 2024, 16,499 people received Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) there, equal to 5.1% of all deaths. Since legalization in 2016, Canada has recorded 76,745 MAID provisions. Health Canada also reported that 732 people received MAID in 2024 even though their natural death wasn't reasonably foreseeable.
Illinois isn't Canada, and the two systems are different, yet it's a familiar moral pattern. A government begins by promising rare, narrow, careful mercy. Then the numbers rise, the language softens, and death becomes a managed service. Once a state builds a legal pathway to lethal drugs, the pressure doesn't always need to shout: sometimes, it only needs to whisper that treatment costs too much, care takes too long, and suffering people should stop being a burden.
A state government has no business placing death besides care as though both deserve equal trust. Real compassion fights pain, loneliness, bad insurance, medical neglect, and fear. Illinois should be pouring strength into hospice, palliative care, home support, disability services, and suicide prevention.
Instead, it's built a process that lets the weakest people wonder whether their government still wants them here.
Payne and the other plaintiffs aren't asking Illinois to ignore suffering; they're asking Illinois to stop turning suffering into a reason for state-approved death.
People with disabilities have spent generations fighting the lie that their lives are worth less.
Illinois just gave that old lie a new legal form.
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