New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act went into effect on Aug. 5.
Its supporters describe it as an act of compassion, autonomy, and dignity. They insist that it is narrowly tailored, limited only to competent adults suffering from terminal illness, surrounded by safeguards, and intended to alleviate unbearable suffering.
Ten years ago, Canadians were told much the same thing.
The Church does not oppose these laws out of a lack of compassion for the suffering. Quite the opposite. The Catholic Church has founded hospitals, hospices, and charitable institutions out of a belief that no human should suffer alone.
The question before us is not whether suffering exists. It certainly does. The question is whether intentionally causing death can ever become an authentic form of medical care.
The Catholic faith has remained consistent that it cannot. The Fifth Commandment, “You shall not kill,” is not merely a prohibition against murder. It is a recognition that human life belongs first to God.
St. John Paul II wrote in “Evangelium vitae”: “Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.”
More than 70,000 Canadians have died through assisted suicide since Canada legalized it in 2016. In 2024, assisted suicide accounted for approximately 1 out of every 20 deaths in Canada.
Canada has also expanded eligibility beyond those whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable. In March 2027, eligibility will expand to include persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.
This is the slippery slope that critics were once told did not exist.
The Church proposes an entirely different vision of authentic compassion, meaning “to suffer with.” Christ did not remove every cross from human existence. Instead, he entered into human suffering himself.
This does not mean Christians seek suffering or reject modern medicine. The Church strongly supports aggressive pain management, hospice care, palliative medicine, and the refusal of disproportionate or burdensome treatments when death is imminent. The Church has never required that every possible medical intervention be pursued.
There is a profound moral difference between allowing natural death to occur and intentionally causing death. Once physicians become agents of death, even under carefully prescribed legal circumstances, the very nature of medicine begins to change.
Pope Francis repeatedly warned against a “throwaway culture” in which society increasingly measures human worth by utility, independence, or economic value rather than by the inherent dignity bestowed by God.
Assisted suicide risks reinforcing precisely that mentality.
New York has entered a new chapter.
Canada reminds us of what happens once society accepts that intentionally ending innocent human life may itself become a form of health care.
Catholics must respond with conviction and charity, advocating for stronger hospice care, wider access to palliative medicine, greater support for caregivers, and accompaniment of the dying.
We must ensure that those who suffer believe that their lives possess value.
Every human life, from conception until natural death, remains infinitely precious because every human life bears the image of God.
That truth does not change because a legislature votes otherwise.