Republican Senate candidate Merante backs religious sisters suing New York over assisted-suicide law

The Republican candidate for a New York state senate seat recently spoke out against New York lawmakers for passing the assisted suicide law that is set to take effect Aug. 5 and that will challenge Catholic health care workers’ right to protect the dying.

"Catholic nuns who have dedicated their lives to caring for the sick, elderly and dying should not have to fight their own state government to remain faithful to their religious beliefs," Anthony Merante, who is running for election in New York State Senate District 35, said in a July 22 Yonkers Times article. "Albany Democrats have reached a disgraceful new low."

As Zeale News previously reported, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who have cared for the dying poor free of charge at Rosary Hill Home for more than 120 years, already sued New York in April over a separate 2023 law requiring long-term care facilities to assign rooms by gender identity. 

>> Hochul accused of anti-Catholic bigotry over LGBT law that would force nuns to violate beliefs << 

The case drew in the Trump administration's Justice Department, which intervened on the sisters' side in June, and became a flashpoint in New York's governor's race, with Hochul's opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, siding with the sisters.

>> New Ways Ministry sides with Hochul in lawsuit against Catholic sisters << 

The religious order is now also among 13 plaintiffs in a second, more recent lawsuit, filed July 17 in federal court in Albany, challenging New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act. Other plaintiffs include the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Little Sisters of the Poor, Catholic Health, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, according to the Yonkers Times. 

The suicide-enabling law, signed by Hochul in February and set to take effect Aug. 5, allows terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to request life-ending drugs. 

The July 17 suit, filed with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, argues the law's religious exemption is too narrow, requiring faith-based doctors, nurses, and facilities to counsel patients about assisted suicide, refer them to willing providers, or transfer them elsewhere, even when doing so conflicts with their beliefs.

"No nun, doctor, nurse or religious caregiver should have to choose between obeying the government and obeying their conscience," Merante said. "This is not compassion. It is government coercion backed by possible fines and criminal penalties."

Merante placed responsibility on Stewart-Cousins, who voted for the Medical Aid in Dying Act. 

"This law threatens the freedom of religious institutions caring for our most vulnerable citizens," he said. He called instead for New York to strengthen hospice care, pain management, and support for terminally ill patients and their families rather than, in his words, force religious institutions to help facilitate the ending of a human life.

"I proudly stand with these courageous sisters," Merante said. "When I am elected to the State Senate, I will defend religious liberty, freedom of conscience and the constitutional rights of every New Yorker."