Just weeks after New York’s Medical Aid in Dying [assisted suicide] law took effect, we are beginning to see how legalization plays out in practice.
The New York Sun reports that as many as 20 New Yorkers have already been assisted in dying under the new law. A bioethicist involved with the program told the newspaper that “about 20 cases” involving terminally ill patients had been processed. The figure has not yet been confirmed by an official statewide report.
State-sanctioned suicide is no longer a theoretical debate in New York.
It is happening.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed assisted suicide into law on February 6, and the law took effect August 5. It allows certain terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to obtain medication they may self-administer to end their lives.
New York Families Foundation opposes the law because we believe that intentionally providing the means to end a patient’s life is morally wrong and represents a profound shift in the role of medicine and in how society responds to suffering.
“The ink is barely dry on New York’s assisted-suicide law, and already we are discussing lives intentionally ended under its authority,” said Jason J. McGuire, Executive Director of New York Families Action. “That should grieve every New Yorker. Medicine should surround people facing terminal illness with care, comfort, and hope—not provide the means for their death. We warned that legalization would fundamentally change how our state responds to suffering. Tragically, that change is already underway.”
New York’s own Department of Health recognizes hospice and palliative care as alternatives for patients with serious or terminal illness, including services that alleviate pain and symptoms while supporting patients and their families.
Those alternatives matter.
Every number reported under this law will represent a person—a son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, friend or neighbor—living through one of life’s most difficult seasons.
At New York Families Foundation, our conviction remains unchanged: people facing terminal illness deserve excellent pain management, compassionate care, the presence of loved ones, and support through natural death. The legalization of assisted suicide has changed New York law. It has not changed the intrinsic value of a human life.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com/2476792285 (Jason Grant)