New York archbishop vows Catholic health providers won’t comply with assisted suicide law

Archbishop Ronald Hicks of New York wrote in a Nov. 12 Wall Street Journal op-ed that Catholic health providers will not comply with the state’s new assisted suicide law, the latest New York law to force Catholics to choose between their faith and a statute they believe is immoral.

“As archbishop of New York, I confidently declare that we will not abandon our patients, and we will not comply. New Yorkers deserve the opportunity to seek medical care from providers who won’t suggest suicide in their most vulnerable moments,” Archbishop Hicks wrote.

“While patients preparing for the end of their lives confront not only physical pain but also emotional distress, our response should be not assistance in dying but greater care: palliative treatment, compassionate accompaniment and prayerful support,” he insisted. “Assisted suicide is a moral and ethical failure because at its core it is a rejection of the dignity of human life, and it exploits vulnerability and fear. As Catholics, we refuse the chilling message that life becomes disposable when care becomes costly.”

Hicks argued that the law’s religious exemption is largely hollow. Providers who receive one must still find a substitute to provide the lethal drugs, arrange patient transfers, and sign death certificates that list the underlying disease, not the drugs, as the cause of death, he noted. 

The law also includes an Orwellian speech code. It stipulates that a person who requests the life-ending medication cannot be “described as suicidal” and that any action taken to facilitate someone killing themselves “shall not be construed for any purpose to constitute suicide, assisted suicide, attempted suicide, promoting a suicide attempt, euthanasia, mercy killing, or homicide under the law, including as an accomplice or accessory or otherwise.”

And although the law contains a religious exemption, it is so narrow that some Catholic facilities, including the Carmelite Sisters’ convent in Hartsdale, have been told they will get no exemption at all.

Archbishop Hicks, the Archdiocese of New York, and its health ministry, ArchCare, joined the federal lawsuit Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Letitia James through an amended complaint filed Oct. 29, by Becket, the religious liberty law firm representing the plaintiffs. 

Four orders of nuns, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and Catholic Health Long Island filed the suit July 17 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York against Attorney General Letitia James, Health Commissioner James McDonald, and the chair of the state’s Board for Professional Medical Conduct.

A Zeale News comparison of statewide health care demand — not including private practice visits — with data for how many patients were seen at Catholic facilities in New York shows that they handle around 5% of patient visits. In certain areas like Long Island (18.5%), Catholic facilities have a higher concentration of the market share. 

The Catholic plaintiffs say the state’s Medical Aid in Dying Act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Feb. 6 and which took effect Aug. 5, works with the state’s Palliative Care Information Act to require doctors and nurse practitioners to counsel terminally ill patients about assisted suicide. Practitioners who decline must arrange for another provider to do so or refer the patient elsewhere, the complaint says. It also notes that physicians are exempt only from providing the lethal medication, and that facilities may bar prescribing on their premises only under a formal religious policy disclosed to patients before admission. 

The plaintiffs say violators face fines, professional discipline, and, according to Becket, imprisonment.

Hochul, a Democrat and self-described Catholic, said when signing the bill that it safeguards New Yorkers’ “right to bodily autonomy.” Her office said the law allows religiously oriented home hospice providers to opt out.

On July 30, with the state’s agreement, U.S. District Judge Anne Nardacci entered a consent order temporarily barring enforcement of the law’s assisted suicide requirements against the original plaintiffs while the court considers a preliminary injunction. Archbishop Hicks and ArchCare are asking for the same protection for Catholic providers in the Archdiocese of New York.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who are also plaintiffs in that case, are fighting a separate New York mandate in Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne v. Hochul. The sisters sued April 6 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over a 2024 law, the Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV. 

That law requires Rosary Hill Home, their 42-bed facility for impoverished people with incurable cancer, to assign rooms by gender identity rather than biological sex and to use residents’ preferred pronouns. State guidance also requires LGBTQ training for the sisters and other medical staff who work directly with residents as part of licensing renewals.

The Justice Department intervened in June, arguing the law violates the Equal Protection Clause because it lets facilities deny opposite-sex room assignments for secular reasons but not religious ones. The state has moved to dismiss, and the plaintiffs’ opposition is due Nov. 18, according to the court docket.

Illinois has taken a similar step to advance assisted suicide, resulting in Becket filing Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Prince on Sept. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, the Carmelite Sisters, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and a Catholic pharmacist. 

The suit challenges the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, which took effect Sept. 12. Becket says the law requires objecting providers to inform patients of the option, help them qualify, and refer them to someone who will assist. On Sept. 11, with Illinois’ agreement, a federal judge temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the mandate against Becket’s clients.