NY Gov. Hochul to sign bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide: ‘Who am I to deny you?’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she plans to sign a measure to legalize medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under a deal reached with state legislative leaders.

The governor intends to sign the bill next year after working to add a series of “guardrails,” she wrote in an op-ed in the Albany Times Union announcing her plans. The measure, approved by state lawmakers during their regulation session earlier this year, will go into effect six months after it is signed.

Hochul, who is Catholic, said she listened to New Yorkers in the “throes of pain and suffering,” as well as their children, while also hearing out “individuals of many faiths who believe that deliberately shortening one’s life violates the sanctity of life.”

“I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be,” she wrote. “This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life.”

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New York will join a dozen other states and Washington, D.C., in adopting laws allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill adults, including Delaware and Illinois, which each approved legislation this year that will go into effect in 2026.

Several other countries, including Canada, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia and Colombia, have also legalized so-called death with dignity.

New York’s bill, dubbed the Medical Aid in Dying Act, requires a terminally ill person who is expected to die within six months to make a written request for life-ending drugs. Two witnesses must sign the request to ensure the patient is not being coerced, and the request would need to be approved by the patient’s attending physician and a consulting physician.

The bill’s sponsors and legislative leaders have agreed to add provisions to mandate that a medical doctor affirms that the person “truly had less than six months to live,” along with confirmation from a psychologist or psychiatrist that the patient is capable of making the decision without being under duress.

“The Medical Aid in Dying Act will afford terminally ill New Yorkers the right to spend their final days not under sterile hospital lights but with sunlight streaming through their bedroom window,” Hochul wrote.

“The right to spend their final days not hearing the droning hum of hospital machines but instead the laughter of their grandkids echoing in the next room. The right to tell their family they love them and be able to hear those precious words in return,” she added.

Hochul said the bill will include a mandatory five-day waiting period in addition to a written and recorded oral request to “confirm free will is present.” Outpatient facilities linked to religious hospitals may choose not to offer medically-assisted suicide.

The governor also said she wants the bill to only apply to New York residents. 

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that a similar law in New Jersey only covers state residents and that people from other jurisdictions cannot seek medical aid-in dying in the Garden State.

“Death brings good things to an end, but rarely neatly,” U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the opinion. “Many terminally ill patients face a grim reality: imminent, painful death. Some may want to avert that suffering by enlisting a doctor’s help to end their own lives. New Jersey lets its residents make that choice—but only its residents.”

Hochul said on Wednesday that supporting the New York bill was one of the toughest decisions she has made as governor.

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“Who am I to deny you or your loved one what they’re begging for at the end of their life?” she said. “I couldn’t do that any longer.”

The legislation was first introduced in 2016 but failed to receive approval for years as religious groups such as the New York State Catholic Conference sought to block the measure, arguing that it would devalue human life and undermine the physician’s role as a healer.

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan and New York’s bishops said in a statement after Hochul’s announcement that her support for the bill “signals our government’s abandonment of its most vulnerable citizens, telling people who are sick or disabled that suicide in their case is not only acceptable, but is encouraged by our elected leaders.”

But supporters of the legislation contended that it would reduce suffering for terminally ill people and allow them to die on their own terms.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.