The New York Assembly on Tuesday approved legislation that would give terminally ill patients with less than six months to live the right to end their lives with a doctor’s assistance.
The bill would set limits around the conversations patients and doctors would have in aid-in-dying cases. It would require doctors to discuss alternatives to ending a patient’s life, such as hospice care. Doctors would also have to assess whether a patient is capable of making the decision to end their life.
Patients would have to make a formal, written request for end-of-life medication, witnessed by two people who are not related to the patient or do not have a financial stake in their death.
Introduced by Assembly Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin (D), the measure would also bar insurers from recommending or providing information on medical aid in dying to patients. Insurers would be limited to providing information on medical aid in dying when a patient or their physician specifically asks about the procedure.
Paulin, who represents a district in the Hudson Valley, has been carrying the legislation for years, since her sister died after battling cancer.
“For a decade, we have fought for this compassionate, commonsense legislation,” Paulin said in a statement after the vote. “Today, we honor the brave advocates we have lost and fulfill a promise to countless New Yorkers who deserve autonomy, dignity and peace at life’s end.”
Republicans, religious groups and anti-abortion rights organizations objected to the measure, which still faces an uncertain future in the Senate. In a statement, Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R) called the measure “suicide-by-doctor.”
“The role of health care is to preserve life and provide the utmost comfort to those facing terminal illnesses and end of life,” Barclay said. “This legislation is severely flawed, not only in principle, but in lacking the appropriate safeguards and requirements necessary to prevent abuse and misapplication. New Yorkers deserve holistic care, not legislation that treats death as a clinical option.”
If the measure wins approval, and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) signature, New York would become the 12th state to legalize medical aid in dying. Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice in 1997, followed by Washington in 2008, Vermont in 2013, then California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, New Mexico and the District of Columbia.
Delaware lawmakers approved a medical aid in dying bill last year, only for then-Gov. John Carney (D) to veto the measure on moral grounds. A new version won approval this year; Gov. Matt Meyer (D) has said he will sign it.