US Christian Nationalists aim to overturn assisted dying, reusing anti-abortion playbook

Religious conservatives in the United States are mounting legal campaigns to overturn assisted dying laws across the US, with the possible aim of engineering a case that reaches a sympathetic Supreme Court, mirroring the strategy that successfully dismantled federal abortion protections in 2022, four years ago today.

Since 2023, opponents of assisted dying have filed lawsuits in federal courts in California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, and New York. The most recent two, filed against brand-new assisted dying laws in Illinois and New York, were announced at a press conference at which Matt Vallière, Executive Director of the Institute for Patients’ Rights, said openly that the goal was to end assisted dying in the US through the Supreme Court.

Some lawsuits are funded by the Christian nationalist right and use religious law firms like Covenant Law, but are filed through disability rights organisations; they claim that assisted dying laws endanger people with disabilities, a conflation of terminal illness and disability that courts have so far consistently rejected. Judges in both California and Delaware have ruled that assisted dying eligibility requires a terminal diagnosis and that participation is entirely voluntary.

This tactic sadly echoes the deliberate conflation of people with disabilities and terminally ill people with six months or fewer to live in the UK debate to try and stir negative feelings about the Westminster Assisted Dying Bill. Some have adopted a tactic of citing groups who are categorically ineligible for assisted dying in the proposed UK law as being ‘at risk’ and claiming there aren’t safeguards in place for those groups, when there are multiple, in addition to the core eligibility criteria categorically excluding them. 

US Religious Right: Anti-assisted dying and anti-abortion

The Institute for Patients’ Rights has received substantial funding from Catholic-linked foundations. A US‑founded Christian legal organisation, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has channelled millions of pounds into its London‑based arm, ADF International UK, which is now a leading voice opposing assisted dying in Parliament. Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), which describes itself as ‘leading the fight in courts, classrooms and culture against abortion and euthanasia’, received nearly £73,000 donated anonymously according to Vice World News, via a donor agency called NPT Transatlantic.

Amnesty International recently outlined a growing anti-human rights movement in the UK, targeting reproductive freedoms and the rights of LGBT+ people. They show that since 2019 the largest spenders are UK branches of US organisations (£34 million), ultra-conservative Christian policy/advocacy groups (£31.5 million), and anti-abortion organisations (£28.5 million)

In the decades before Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, religious conservatives pursued a state-by-state litigation strategy designed to generate circuit splits and build a case docket for a sympathetic Supreme Court, whose bench now includes several justices handpicked by President Trump. The same playbook now appears to be in operation against assisted dying.

Nathan Stilwell, spokesperson for Humanists UK, said:

‘Four years ago today, Roe v Wade, which protected women’s hard-fought reproductive rights in the United States, was overturned. It was a depressing but stark reminder that rights must be protected and defended. Yet today, religious Christian nationalists appear to be using the same toolkit, mounting a coordinated legal campaign to overturn assisted dying laws.

‘The UK should take this as a warning. We are already seeing attempts here to import US-style culture-war tactics into what should be a compassionate, evidence-based debate about terminally ill people’s autonomy and women’s right to choose. Dying people deserve honesty, compassion and autonomy at the end of their lives.’