Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) plans to sign a bill permitting assisted suicide for those who have less than six months to live. The bill is expected to be signed in January and will take effect six months later.
“New York has long been a beacon of freedom, and now it is time we extend that freedom to terminally ill New Yorkers who want the right to die comfortably and on their own terms,” Hochul said in a statement. “My mother died of ALS, and I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and being powerless to stop it. Although this was an incredibly difficult decision, I ultimately determined that with the additional guardrails agreed upon with the legislature, this bill would allow New Yorkers to suffer less–to shorten not their lives, but their deaths.”
The bill, called the “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” includes the text of a form that a patient is to sign upon choosing to end their life.
New York lawmakers called Hochul’s agreement to the bill “historic.”
“This is truly historic for New York,” Assemblymember Amy Paulin stated, claiming that the bill “gives countless New Yorkers the autonomy and dignity they deserve at the most vulnerable moment in their lives.”
In May, Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, a Democrat, signed a bill legalizing assisted suicide. The law, called “The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law,” says a “terminally ill adult individual who has decision-making capacity has the right to request and self-administer medication to end their life in a humane and dignified manner.”
According to Compassion & Choices, twelve states have legalized medically-assisted death, including California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C.
