Doctor and patient discussing
By Michael Pauley
At 28, Jane Allen was living in Colorado and quietly battling anorexia, a struggle faced by more than 260,000 American women annually. After years of treatment in various facilities, she ended up receiving a controversial diagnosis from her clinician: “terminal anorexia”— a diagnosis that many mental health practitioners flatly reject. In a 2022 article published in the “Journal of Eating Disorders,” a group of psychiatric experts affirmed that anorexia is a treatable disorder. The article’s headline summarized their conclusion: “Terminal anorexia nervosa is a dangerous term:
it cannot, and should not, be defined.”
Despite the dubious diagnosis, Jane was deemed eligible to receive life-ending drugs under Colorado’s assisted suicide law. A doctor made sure she received the lethal pills, but they were never used. At precisely the right moment, Jane’s father secured a court order granting him guardianship over his daughter. This allowed him to intervene, dispose of the drugs and save Jane’s life.
Many Americans would be shocked to learn that young adults with a treatable illness could qualify for assisted suicide. After all, these laws are typically sold to the public as a compassionate tool to spare dying patients from needless suffering. Pro-suicide advocacy groups like Death with Dignity use soothing language to convince us that such policies “allow certain people with a terminal illness to voluntarily and legally request and receive a prescription medication from their physician to hasten their death in a peaceful, humane, and dignified manner.”
In a society that prizes personal autonomy as much as the avoidance of suffering, this language is understandably compelling. It helps explain why assisted suicide has been embraced in a growing number of states. Since Oregon first legalized the practice in 1994, it has now spread to 13 states, including New York and Illinois, where assisted suicide laws took effect just this year. A 2024 Gallup poll reported that 66 percent of Americans support doctor-assisted suicide.
The Catholic Church has been resolute in its opposition to assisted suicide laws. A pastoral statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us, “Jewish and Christian moral traditions have long rejected the idea of assisting in another’s suicide. Catholic teaching views suicide as a grave offense against love of self, one that breaks the bonds of love and solidarity with family, friends, and God.” The Second Vatican Council included “euthanasia or willful self-destruction” among a list of infamies that “poison human society” and constitute a “supreme dishonor to
the Creator” (Gaudium et Spes, 27).
The legalization of assisted suicide, sold as “compassion,” ironically results in a loss of care for vulnerable populations, because a prescription of lethal drugs is a cheap alternative to more costly care that would alleviate suffering and restore a patient’s will to live. There have been numerous documented cases of government health programs or private insurance companies issuing denials of coverage for lifesaving treatment, while informing patients that assisted suicide drugs are available for a co-pay of just a few dollars. In Canada, which legalized assisted suicide in 2016, government officials have been callously open about the millions of dollars saved by issuing patients lethal drugs as opposed to more costly medical care.
Proponents of assisted suicide emphasize “patient autonomy and choice,” while overlooking the glaring fact that many individuals contemplating suicide are particularly vulnerable and may have impaired decision-making abilities due to depression, anxiety, loneliness, advanced age, coercion from health care workers or family members, and other risk factors. One study in Oregon showed that 26 percent of people requesting assisted suicide suffered from depression. But another Oregon study revealed that only 3.3 percent of 2,159 persons who killed themselves by ingesting lethal drugs had been referred for psychiatric evaluation. For vulnerable people, the “freedom” of assisted suicide is translated as a “duty to die.” This is why the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund states, “… assisted suicide is not a compassionate choice—it’s abandonment dressed up as policy.”
In South Dakota, assisted suicide is illegal, and proponents of suicide haven’t made a concerted effort to change that yet. But make no mistake, this fight will soon come upon us. In recent years, assisted suicide advocates have expanded their objectives beyond progressive states. In 2026, there were several bills introduced to legalize the practice in more conservative states such as Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri.
When the governor of Illinois signed a bill in late 2025 legalizing assisted suicide, the state’s bishops exhorted the faithful to “speak even more strongly that true compassion means helping people live, not helping them die.” The Catholic faithful in South Dakota should heed this call.
