by Tablet Staff
With assisted suicide officially becoming legal across New York on Aug. 5, the state’s Catholic bishops are calling for prayers, noting that “our elected officials have turned the notion of ‘death with dignity’ on its head.”
“As our state enters this new era of assisted death on demand, the Bishops ask all New Yorkers to pray for those facing difficult health crises, depression, disability, and the end-of-life,” Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in a statement. “They also ask for prayers that our state citizens reject the Culture of Death and embrace a Culture of Life.”
The Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID), which Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Catholic, signed into law on Feb. 6, allows terminally ill adults with a six-month prognosis to end their lives with doctor-prescribed medications.
The final version of the legislation mandates a five-day waiting period, a mental health evaluation, and an initial in-person physician evaluation. The MAID request must also be recorded as video or audio, and anyone who may benefit financially from the patient’s death is barred from acting as a witness or interpreter for the request.
MAID requests are also limited to New York residents.
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At the time of signing the legislation, Hochul said in a statement that “our state will always stand firm in safeguarding New Yorkers’ freedoms and right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right for the terminally ill to peacefully and comfortably end their lives with dignity and compassion.”
The New York State Catholic Conference represents the state’s bishops on public policy matters. Poust, in his statement, reiterated the bishops’ position that physician-assisted suicide is in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life from conception until natural death.
“The truth is, human beings never lose their innate dignity, no matter how much their physical bodies betray them,” Poust said. “Pushing suicide drugs on sick, disabled, or dying New Yorkers does not enhance their dignity; it only enhances a coarsening of our culture and the bottom lines for insurers and medical facilities.
“It represents a failure of compassion, especially if lawmakers use this new law as an excuse to further delay appropriate investments in access to palliative and hospice care.”
New York is the 13th state, along with the District of Columbia, to legalize assisted suicide. Canada, meanwhile, is considered the world leader in assisted suicide.
According to statistics compiled by the federal governments in both Canada and the U.S., more than 70,000 people have died by assisted suicide in Canada since it was legalized nationwide in 2016, and in 2024, 5.1% (1 in 5 people) of deaths were by assisted suicide. Next March, Canada will expand assisted suicide availability to include individuals whose sole underlying condition is mental illness.
Poust said that Canada’s passage and continued expansion of its assisted suicide laws make the “unintended consequences” of New York’s law “tragically predictable.”
He also noted that the conference expects the “state’s mixed messaging on suicide to lead to an increase in suicides in general, including by young, physically healthy people.”
The Catholic bishops of New York state previously spoke out on MAID in December, when Hochul announced she planned to sign the MAID legislation. In a joint statement, they highlighted the message it sends to vulnerable citizens statewide.
“This new law signals our government’s abandonment of its most vulnerable citizens,” the bishops said, “telling people who are sick or disabled that suicide in their case is not only acceptable, but is encouraged by our elected leaders.”