As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul tries to explain the many “safeguards” that will accompany the physician-assisted suicide legislation and her reasons for deciding to sign it into law, the Catholic bishops of the state are warning that the new law undermines her suicide prevention investments and communicates that elected officials encourage suicide.
The bishops of New York and Cardinal Timothy Dolan issued the joint statement Dec. 17 denouncing the bill as “egregious,” emphasizing that assisted suicide is a grave moral evil that directly conflicts with Catholic teaching on the sancity of life.
“We are extraordinarily troubled by Governor Hochul’s announcement that she will sign the egregious bill passed by the legislature earlier this year sanctioning physician-assisted suicide in New York State,” they said. “This new law 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.”
Cardinal Dolan has previously spoken out against the bill, noting in a May 29 Wall Street Journal op-ed that New York has spent millions on anti-suicide efforts and that Hochul has invested an unprecedented amount of effort into mental health resources for citizens.
The bishops and cardinal warned in the statement that, “tragically, this new law will seriously undermine” every such investment Hochul has made as governor.
“How can any society have credibility to tell young people or people with depression that suicide is never the answer, while at the same time telling elderly and sick people that it is a compassionate choice to be celebrated?” they wrote.
Hochul penned a Dec. 17 opinion piece in the Times Union explaining her decision to support the bill, writing that the government’s responsibility is “to protect, not interfere, with an individual’s deeply personal decisions.”
She said the bill enables people with terminal illness and less than six months to live to legally access “medical aid to speed up the inevitable” — using the term “medical aid” as euphemism for phsyician-assisted suicide and evidently dismissing the prospect that a doctor’s six-month-to-live prognosis can be wrong.
Hochul explained in an X post linking the article that she has met with “families, doctors, and advocates,” reflected on her own loss, and decided that the state’s citizens “deserve the option to face the end of life with dignity and comfort, with strong safeguards in place.”
Advocates of palliative care and protecting life until natural death have long underscored the slippery slope that comes with legalization of assisted suicide. Many “safeguards” are often removed shortly after legalization. Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016 and has since repeatedly expanded access and eligibility for the program. As of 2021, people with non-terminal illnesses can be eligible for euthanasia in Canada.
Hochul said she will sign the legislation in January 2026 and it will take effect six months later, according to Spectrum Local News. The outlet described Hochul as “a practicing Catholic” and that she has previously said she has needed “to be very careful” to not let her decision on the bill be influenced by her own circumstances and life influences.
The outlet reported that one protection in the bill is that religious home hospice providers are allowed to opt out of offering physician-assisted suicide. According to the outlet, the bill will have other amendments — such as a five-day waiting period between a prescription being written and filled — that are intended to protect family members, doctors, and caregivers, and to help vulnerable citizens to not feel pressure or be misled.
However, as the bishops and Cardinal Dolan noted, the mere legalization of physician-assisted suicide, for all its supposed safeguards, inherently sends the message to those who are most at risk that suicide is okay, and your situation might warrant requesting it from a doctor.
The New York bishops and Cardinal Dolan emphasized that as the legalization of physician-assisted suicide quickly approaches, they “must clearly reiterate that it is in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life from conception until natural death and is a grave moral evil on par with other direct attacks on human life.”
“We call on Catholics and all New Yorkers to reject physician-assisted suicide for themselves, their loved ones, and those in their care,” they concluded. “And we pray that our state turn away from its promotion of a Culture of Death and invest instead in life-affirming, compassionate hospice and palliative care, which is seriously underutilized.”