CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday denied disability rights advocates’ request to block an Illinois law going into effect this weekend that lets terminally ill patients obtain prescription medication to end their lives.

The ruling came in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year by two disabled patients, a doctor and several disability and patients’ rights organizations. They allege the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars discrimination against people with disabilities; the Affordable Care Act, which regulates healthcare costs; and the plaintiffs’ equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But in his 25-page decision, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp rejected at least one of the plaintiffs’ arguments calling for a preliminary injunction to put the law on hold, disagreeing that doctors “will start inviting disabled patients to consider medical aid in dying” once the law takes effect.

“The Act exempts healthcare professionals from any duty to provide aid-in-dying care, states that a healthcare provider ‘may choose not to engage in aid-in-dying care,’ and provides that ‘only willing healthcare professionals shall provide aid-in-dying care in accordance with the Act,” Tharp wrote. “With this amount of discretion afforded to doctors, (one of the plaintiffs) cannot establish an immediate, imminent risk that all doctors will start inviting disabled patients to consider medical aid in dying.”

The law takes effect Saturday. The lawsuit will continue, though Tharp dismissed Gov. JB Pritzker as a defendant. Plaintiffs now have 30 days to show why the rest of the suit shouldn’t be dismissed as well.

Illinois joined at least 10 other states and Washington, D.C., in permitting medical aid in dying when Pritzker signed the law late last year. Pritzker said it would help terminally ill patients “avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives.”

Opponents call the law immoral because it lets patients choose to end their lives. Other legal challenges are pending, including one filed last week by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, and other clergy.

Under the law, patients who have been given up to six months to live by a doctor, are Illinois residents, and are at least 18 years old “may orally request a prescription for medication” from their attending physician, and it must be documented. The patient must also request the medication in writing to their physician after making the oral request. But the patient must also make a second oral request five days after the initial one.

The written request for the medication must also be witnessed by two people who believe the patient is mentally sound and acting voluntarily, according to the law, which also limits who can act as witnesses.

When the patient makes the second oral request, the attending physician must offer the patient an opportunity to rescind the request and “provide sufficient information to a patient regarding all appropriate end-of-life care options,” including comfort care, hospice care, palliative care and pain control, as well as the foreseeable risks and benefits of each.

As referenced in Tharp’s decision, one of the plaintiffs — a quadriplegic woman named Ebony Payne who is paralyzed from the neck down and has repeatedly been in serious life-threatening situations in hospitals — contended that for disabled people the law “removes the legal and ethical obligation of doctors” to act solely as healers by allowing them to respond to requests about procedures related to medical aid in dying. But the judge argued the plaintiff has not shown that she is a “qualified patient” under the law.

The judge also noted Payne did not explain “why she is necessarily harmed” by the law if she does not seek a medical-aid-in-dying method “or the physician is in any event unwilling to provide such assistance.”

“Instead, she denigrates the provisions of the (law) that forestall the loosening of doctors’ duties. The (law) mandates that the standard of care remain unaltered … and requires that doctors proceeding under the (law) must explain all medical options for patients at the end of their lives and explain their risks and benefits,” Tharp wrote.

Tharp also addressed other arguments, including those from two other plaintiffs, which are disability rights organizations, who contend the medical-aid-in-dying law would essentially require them to expand their suicide prevention efforts.

“The organizations’ purported need to increase suicide-prevention programming is wholly speculative, not immediate or imminent,” the judge wrote. “There is nothing in the record about the State of Illinois reducing or changing its suicide prevention programs other than the speculation of the two affiants.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, a proponent of the law, praised Tharp’s decision.

“The law was crafted deliberately and intentionally to provide options for those facing a terminal illness while providing protection against coercion and abuse,” Khadine Bennett, the ACLU of Illinois’ advocacy and intergovernmental affairs director, said in a prepared statement. “The judge recognized this reality in the text of the law, rejecting the twisted reading of the measure offered by the plaintiffs to sow fear and misinformation.”

In her statement, Payne said Tharp’s decision “means that this dangerous law will go into effect” and changes “the longstanding relationship between doctors and patients like me.”

“The judge gave our legal team 30 days to show why the case should not be dismissed, and I plan to work with them in seeking justice to stand up for my rights and the rights of other vulnerable patients,” she said.

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Tribune reporter Jason Meisner contributed.

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