Pro-life groups urge court to block Delaware’s assisted suicide law

(LifeSiteNews) — The United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals must block a Delaware law that opens up the floodgates for assisted suicide, according to pro-life organizations.

Led by the Life Legal Defense Foundation, the amicus brief says that states have a “solemn duty” to protect human life. The amicus brief sides with Sean Curran, a quadriplegic, who says the law violates his 14th Amendment rights.

The pro-life organizations are teaming up with disability rights organizations to challenge Delaware’s “End of Life Options Act.” A district court judge refused to block the law in December 2025.

Other backers of the brief include Alliance Defending Freedom, Concerned Women for America, and CatholicVote.org Legal Fund. Allowing the law to go into effect would have dire consequences, the pro-life groups warn.

The assisted suicide law “violates a core value of our democracy reflected in our founding documents—the right to life—by removing legal safeguards against medically assisted suicide.”

Indeed, both English and American law have a consistent history of either criminalizing assisted suicide or punishing suicide in general, as shown in an extensive review of legal history.

As early as 673, England had laws punishing suicide, the brief notes. People who killed themselves would have their possessions taken away from their would-be heirs in some cases, according to the amicus brief. American colonies had similar laws. This forms a long history of punishing suicide, which should lead the court to step in and protect disabled individuals from being targeted with so-called “assisted suicide.”

The attorneys wrote:

For nearly 1400 years, from England’s first prohibition on suicide in 673 up to the present day, the vast weight of legal evidence has supported the view that life is a fundamental right inherent in nature and a societal good that governments have the solemn responsibility to defend. The recent trend in some states of legalizing assisted suicide is a threat to vulnerable individuals and erodes the commitment of government to protect them.

“These laws are a Pandora’s Box, and the harm that they inflict on vulnerable groups is already evident in jurisdictions that have allowed the practice,” the brief states.

Delaware law violates ‘substantive due process’ rights

The state “has no legitimate purpose in helping people kill themselves,” and, in any case, the law is not “narrowly tailored,” according to the pro-life groups.

In fact, the Supreme Court already ruled in 1997 there is no right to assisted suicide in a case called Washington v. Glucksberg. The Court ruled unanimously that there is no right – a stunning fact given that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy were usually ready to invent all sorts of new “rights.”

One of the problems with assisted suicide is that it could lead to those with mental illnesses being harmed. “Legalization of assisted suicide makes it more difficult for states to protect and treat mentally ill persons or those suffering from untreated pain,” Life Legal Defense Foundation warned.

The brief continues on to cite data about how doctors can coerce patients into killing themselves, which undermines the argument that assisted suicide is about autonomy and supporting the agency of those who are terminally ill. Delaware is not actually addressing a patient’s pain, but just killing them.

The pro-life groups argue further:

With the availability of far less drastic options, there is no practical reason to resort to killing patients. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that doctors are not always correct in their prognoses, and there is evidence that their biases against disabled persons may contribute to a failure to provide adequate health care alternatives.

The pro-life groups explain the dark future ahead if the law goes into effect: “The Act implicitly incentivizes disabled persons to commit suicide by placing the imprimatur of the law on the practice, thereby removing the historical stigma associated with it.”

Assisted suicide abused, targets people based on a variety of sicknesses

The case is unfolding against the backdrop of other states and countries legalizing the practice with horrifying results (as would be expected with any law that makes it legal to kill an innocent human being).

Canada eliminated a 10-day waiting period that allowed people further time to reconsider their options. After that happened, more than 200 Ontario residents requested, and were approved, for killing within 24 hours or so, as LifeSiteNews previously reported.

There is strong evidence to suggest that physician assisted suicide has been abused both in the United States and in other countries.

A 2017 report from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found Oregon’s state insurance plan would pay for assisted suicide but not treatment. There was another similar example cited from California.

A separate 2018 report identified problems outside of the United States with countries that legalized assisted suicide.

Canadian veterans were reportedly offered assisted suicide despite not having a terminal illness. One veteran, who had post-traumatic stress disorder, called Veteran Affairs seeking help only to be encouraged to commit suicide.

The issue of assisted suicide further came into the news with two high-profile examples.

Left-wing California Governor Gavin Newsom expanded the killing of vulnerable human beings, despite his own pain coping with his mother’s decision to kill herself.

“I hated her for it – to be there for the last breath – for years,” Newsom told the Washington Post. “I want to say it was a beautiful experience. It was horrible.” After she died, Newsom recalls sitting with her “for another 20 minutes […] My head on her stomach, just crying, waiting for another breath.”

The late “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams also highlighted the pain of assisted suicide for the person who is being killed.

Adams, who was once a rabid supporter of legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia, considered killing himself due to a grim cancer diagnosis.

Thankfully, he changed his mind after contemplating the excessive pain he would have to go through as he suffered through hours waiting for the drugs to end his life.