NY bishops urge Catholics to oppose state’s assisted suicide legislation

The New York State Catholic Conference is urging the state’s Catholic population to oppose an assisted suicide proposal in its state legislature.

“At a time when New Yorkers are rightly concerned with issues such as affordability, crime, homelessness, federal cuts to Medicaid, behavioral health access, and their children’s education, it is unconscionable that lawmakers would consider now an appropriate time to legalize suicide for a segment of the population,” the bishops said in their statement.

The proposed measure would change state law so that supposedly terminally ill adults – those expected to live six months or less – could ask physicians for medication to help kill themselves.

NYS Catholic Conference worries the legislation would hurt vulnerable groups, such as the disabled, elderly, poor and those in medical deserts. The Conference worries people will face pressure to end their lives because they feel like a burden or too costly for insurance companies.

“Sadly, we are facing a suicide crisis among young people in our state, and the government rightly spends large sums of money to prevent these tragedies and to deliver a consistent message that life is worth living,” the bishops wrote. “Now our state will be telling its citizens that some lives — perhaps where there has been a loss of autonomy or a disability — are not worth living.” 

The bishops added that passing the bill would promote suicide as an acceptable solution to people’s life problems. 

Corinne Carey, the New York director of the advocacy group Compassion and Choices, who supports the legislation, compared it to abortion, making a bodily autonomy argument for it. 

“It’s just a matter of time before (Democratic leaders) acknowledge what everyone else seems to already know: that autonomy at the end of life is part and parcel of this freedom that they believe in,” Carey told the Times Union earlier this year. “It’s a terminal illness that is taking someone’s life, and it is wresting control from them.” 

Gov. Kathy Hochul has not yet said whether she would sign the bill into law if it reaches her desk, according to Staten Island Advance. 

Ten states permit assisted suicide, primarily Democrat-led ones. Since legalizing it, some states have expanded the scope of the practice. 

For example, Oregon and Vermont dropped their assisted suicide residency requirements for out-of-staters in 2022 and 2023. Additionally, Colorado passed a law in 2024 reducing the waiting period between oral requests from 15 days to seven, creating waiting period waivers for some patients and letting advanced practice registered nurses prescribe assisted suicide.  

Also, in 2016, Canada legalized assisted suicide. By 2022, assisted suicide became its fifth-leading cause of death, increasing from 1,018 cases in 2016 to 13,241 cases in 2022.