In 2025, multiple states across the U.S. took steps to expand access to physician-assisted suicide: Delaware enacted a law (that went into effect yesterday) allowing terminally ill adults to self-administer lethal medication, Illinois passed a bill that allows doctors to give terminally ill patients life-ending drugs if they request them, and the New York State Assembly passed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” which is expected to be signed shortly by Gov. Kathy Hochul. In each of these cases, the Catholic Bishops have spoken out strongly against the measures and in defense of the dignity of every human life.
On the international stage, France allowed certain terminally ill adults to receive lethal medication, the United Kingdom’s House of Commons passed a bill to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients (it will be voted on in the House of Lords, but is expected to pass), and Uruguay legalized euthanasia for adults in the terminal stage of a disease.
Click here to read the full article from the Catholic News Agency.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are always immoral (n. 2277): “An act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.”