Amazing News: Virginia assisted suicide bill dies in Committee.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have amazing news. The Virginia assisted suicide bill died on February 5 (today) by a vote of 8 to 7 in the Virginia Senate Committee on Education and Health.

Congratulations to everyone who worked with the coalition and/or contacted their state representatives. Lives have been saved by the defeat of this bill.

Legalizing assisted suicide in Virginia, which is to poison people to death, has been a goal of the assisted suicide lobby for many years.

In 2025, Delaware, Illinois and New York passed assisted suicide bills. New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated that she would not sign the New York bill until amendments were made. 

The amendments included a 5 day waiting period, that can be waived if the person is deemed to be near to death, a residency requirement, a mandatory psychiatric evaluation and a recorded assisted suicide request.

Sadly the amendment bill passed in both of the New York State Houses on February 4 and Governor Hochul is expected to sign the bill on February 6.

New Yorkers received a dubious holiday gift this year.

"New Yorker Governor to sign assisted suicide bill."

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Article: New York Governor will sign assisted suicide bill (Link).

Bria Sandford Ramos wrote an excellent article that was published by - The Dispatch on December 23, 2025 titled: Death Comes For New York State.

Sandford Ramos explains:

In a press conference, Hochul said signing the bill was “one of the toughest decisions [she’s] ever made as governor,” acknowledging the concerns of many constituents about the effect the bill could have on the most vulnerable. As originally written, the bill would have made New York’s assisted suicide law one of the most permissive in the country, with no waiting period between request and access to lethal drugs, no required screening for depression, and minimal reporting requirements. Hochul’s signature is conditional upon the passage of amendments designed to tighten requirements and prevent abuse. But even with guardrails, the decision to sanction deliberate self-killing and legalize a procedure that the American Medical Association this summer called “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as a healer,” is a watershed moment.

Sharon Shapiro-Lacks

Sharon Shapiro-Lacks, a board member for the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, who is also a person with a disability told Sandford Ramos in an interview that:

But mercy is not what many people see in physician-assisted suicide. “She really, really did not understand where the disability community was coming from,”... Kathy Hochul could not get that this is not a religious issue, that we were objecting to the systemic issue that doctors would be making the call as to who has a rational cause to want to end their life prematurely.”

Shapiro-Lacks further stated:

While severe pain is often used as a reason to legalize assisted suicide—and is indeed one reason some patients seek it—many requests for lethal doses also come from those who fear loss of independence. Indeed, what many in the disabled community fear is a world where a loss of autonomy is seen as a valid reason to die.

 Shapiro-Lacks, who has been fighting for disability rights for more than 40 years continued:

 “People are more scared of losing their capacities more than of the pain,” ... “Throughout my life, I’ve been told, ‘Oh my, you’re remarkable, I could never live like that. If I had to be in a wheelchair, I don’t know what I would do.’ And that always bothered me, because that kind of inspiration is a backhanded compliment. What it actually says is, ‘I wouldn’t live if I were you.’”

The reality is that legalizing assisted suicide gives medical professionals the right in law to prescribe a lethal poison cocktail to cause your death. No one should be given the right in law to kill others. 

Assisted suicide directly affects people in their time of greatest need, when they are most vulnerable to the suggestion of death as a solution to difficult conditions.

Finally, legalizing assisted suicide does not end the debate. Once assisted suicide is legal, the assisted suicide lobby will lobby or launch court cases to expand the law. The original assisted suicide bill is designed to pass in the legislature, once passed incremental extensions will follow.

New York Governor to Sign Assisted suicide bill

This article was published by National Review online on December 17, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

To the surprise of absolutely no one, New York Governor Hochul has said that in January, after some minor changes are added, she will sign the bill legalizing assisted suicide. From the Spectrum News 1 story:

Hochul said the new amended bill will include additional safeguards, or “guardrails,” to protect family members, caregivers and doctors and ensure that vulnerable populations are not pressured or misled.

Of course, these “guardrail” protections–such as they are–will come under sustained assault once the law goes into effect as “barriers” to a good death. They are unlikely to last for very long.

Governor Kathy Hochul

But let’s take a look at some of the supposed improved protections:

A mandatory waiting period of five days between when a prescription is written and filled.

Assisted suicide laws used to require a 15-day waiting period, so you can see the liberalization started even before the bill was signed.

An oral request for medical aid in dying must be recorded by video or audio.

Not much different than signing a form.

A mandatory mental health evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

These exams are likely to be cursory and probably won’t stop terminally ill people with depression from suicide, nor those with other mental illnesses, as most suicide facilitation laws only require that the suicidal patient be “capable,” that is, have the ability to make and communicate decisions. Depressed and mentally ill people are often quite “capable.”

Limiting access to New York residents.

This is an improvement, such as it is. But remember, one can become a New York resident quite easily, within days, actually.

Requiring that the initial physician evaluation be in person.

Believe it or not, some states allow virtual assisted suicide examinations. This is better, for what it is worth.

Allowing religiously-oriented home hospice providers to opt out of offering medical aid in dying.

The devil will be in the details here. And conscience rights shouldn’t be limited to religiously oriented facilities, as assisted suicide is a direct violation of the hospice philosophy of care — which includes suicide prevention — a potential protection the governor did not insist upon.

Extending the effective date to six months after signing to allow the Department of Health and healthcare facilities to implement regulations and train staff.

Continuing “medical” education on making patients dead. This is the state to which the profession has descended from the days when the Hippocratic Oath held sway.

The sponsor of the bill justified radically changing the ethics of medicine in New York with a sophistic comment:

“Since we first introduced this legislation nine years ago, I have consistently said this bill is not about ending life, it’s about shortening death,” he said.

Dying isn’t dead; it is a sometimes very difficult stage of living. We should provide people with the care they need so that they do not want immediate death rather than abandoning them to poison pills.

Hochul approached the issue as if religion were the only reason to oppose assisted suicide.

In an opinion piece published in the Albany Times Union, Hochul acknowledged that her decision may be rejected by the Catholic Church but said her own beliefs and reflection guided her. “I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be. This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life,” she wrote.

But the AMA opposes assisted suicide, and it isn’t religious (or conservative). Disability rights activists have been as vociferous in their opposition as the Catholic Church–and they are generally secular in their outlook and liberal in their politics.

So why the fuss among this cadre? They know that people with disabilities are the real targets of this movement, that once assisted suicide becomes normalized, the categories of killable people will expand well beyond the terminally ill.

Soon, about half the country will live in jurisdictions that allow doctors to prescribe poison pills to patients. That’s awful, but it is what many in this country want.

Ah well. Remember the old bromide, “Be careful what you ask for . . .”

Sad news: New York Governor will sign the assisted suicide bill.

The assisted suicide lobby are already lobbing for expansions of the law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have bad but possibly not unexpected news.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote an article that was published in the Albany Times Union explaining that she will sign the New York assisted suicide bill. When Bill A136/S138 is signed it will make New York the 13th state to legalize assisted suicide. Legalizing assisted suicide gives medical professionals the right to be involved with poisoning their patients to death.

Governor Kathy Hochul

Jimmy Vielkind reported for the Gothamist that:

The Democratic governor wrote Wednesday in the Albany Times Union that she’s approving the legislation after state lawmakers agreed to enact additional safeguards. They include residency restrictions, a five-day waiting period, and a requirement that patients record their oral request to end their lives.

Vielkind reported for the Gothamist on December 3 that Hochul was negotiating amendments to the bill with the sponsors of the assisted suicide bill.

After Hochul signs the bill, the sponsors will have to introduce a bill in the new year to amend the legislation based on the agreement with Governor Hochul.

 

Mandi Zucker, the executive director of End of Life Choices New York stated in a letter to supporters that:

We will also continue to advocate for changes to the law once enacted that will make the option of medical aid in dying more accessible to everyone.

Once assisted suicide is legal, the assisted suicide lobby will lobby or launch court cases to expand the law. The original assisted suicide bill is designed to pass in the legislature, once passed incremental extensions will follow.

New York Governor Hochul seeks changes to assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Governor Kathy Hochul

In June, 2025 the New York State Senate approved assisted suicide Bill A136/S138 that was approved by the State Assembly in April.

We were wondering what was happening to the New York assisted suicide bill since the bill had not yet reached Governor Hochul for signing.

An article by Jimmy Vielkind that was published by the Gothamist on December 3 is reporting that Governor Hochul is negotiating with the sponsors of the assisted suicide bill to amend the bill. According to Vielkind:

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to add a requirement that people videotape their requests for physician-assisted deaths, one of several conditions she’s put forward to sign the hotly debated Medical Aid in Dying Act.

The Democratic governor proposed the amendments to the Legislature late last month, according to two people briefed on the negotiations but not authorized to speak publicly about them. Talks are ongoing, the people said.

Hochul is seeking a waiting period and to restrict the bill to New York residents. Vielkind wrote:

Hochul is also pushing to create a seven-day waiting period for terminally ill patients who seek life-ending drugs from physicians. Another proposed provision would require all patients who ask doctors to help end their lives to undergo a mental health evaluation by a psychiatrist.

The governor also wants to restrict the practice to New York residents. And instead of having the bill become law immediately after her signature, she has proposed delaying its effective date by a year.

Vielkind reported that: 

Assemblymember Amy Paulin and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the bill’s sponsors, said they couldn’t comment about the bill’s status. Hochul’s spokesperson Kara Cumoletti said the governor “continues to review the legislation.”

Sadly this means that Governor Hochul doesn't recognize that assisted suicide is innately dangerous, discriminatory and wrong.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is urging all of its supporters to call New York Governor Kathy Hochul at: 518-474-8390 and urge her to veto the assisted suicide bill.

The assisted suicide lobby is promoting suicide tourism.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A recent assisted suicide lobby information article asks the question: Can I travel to use Death with Dignity?

As many of our supporters are aware, Oregon and Vermont expanded their assisted suicide laws by removing the assisted suicide law residency requirement and allowing anyone from anywhere to die by assisted suicide in those states.

The recent assisted suicide lobby article is encouraging people from jurisdictions that prohibit assisted suicide to become suicide tourists and die by assisted suicide in Oregon or Vermont.

The article includes links for out-of-state- residents to contact assisted suicide organizations in Oregon and Vermont as well as contact information for a national organization that will provide advice for suicide tourists.

The assisted suicide lobby is promoting suicide tourism to encourage more out-of-state residents to die by assisted suicide in Oregon and Vermont.

In March 2025 I published an article outlining the Oregon assisted suicide statistics. In 2024 in Oregon there were:

• 607 poison prescriptions written, which was up from 433 in 2022.
• 376 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 71 from 305 in 2022.
• 23 of the 376 reported assisted suicide deaths were out-of-state residents.

In the article I explain that there were likely more assisted suicide deaths in Oregon in 2024 based on Oregon doctors often sending in late reports and possible problems with under-reporting.

Since the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) determines the number of assisted suicide deaths based on the reports they receive, therefore, if a doctor does not submit a report to the OHA there is no way to know if there was an out-of state assisted suicide death. As the 2024 OHA report states:

Previously, residence information was collected from the patient’s death certificate. However, for patients who die outside of Oregon and are not Oregon residents, OHA has no way to obtain notice of those deaths.

Since the OHA does not receive a death certificate for a non-resident assisted suicide death, therefore it cannot be determined if there were only 23 out-of-state residents who died by assisted suicide in Oregon in 2024.

It must be noted that the assisted suicide bill that passed in the New York state Assembly and Senate that has not been signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, does not have a residency requirement and would allow suicide tourism in New York.

When a person dies without family to take care of a funeral, the state becomes financially responsible for dealing with the body. Suicide tourism would exacerbate this problem.

Contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Contact Link) or call her at: 518-474-8390 and urge her to veto the assisted suicide bill and prevent assisted suicide tourism in New York.

New York Governor Hochul must veto the assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

New York Governor Hochul

The New York Post published an editorial urging New York's Governor Kathy Hochul to veto the assisted suicide bill.

In June, 2025 the New York State Senate approved assisted suicide Bill A136/S138 that was also approved by the Assembly in April.

The assisted suicide bill has not yet reached Governor Hochul desk, but, when it does she must veto the assisted suicide bill or it will become law.

Contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Contact Link) or call her at: 518-474-8390 and urge her to protect people when they are vulnerable by vetoing the assisted suicide bill.

The New York Post editorial stated:

Gov. Kathy Hochul must resist the coming push to sign the so-called Medical Aid in Dying Act: New York doesn’t need to turn doctors into killers.

Fans of “assisted suicide” pretend it’s purely about respecting the wishes of terminally ill patients seeking a dignified exit, but medicalized killing never stops there.

The editorial continues:

The bill awaiting Hochul’s signature, has no waiting period, making same-day suicides entirely possible; it requires no evaluation of a would-be suicides patient’s mental competency.

Damningly, it requires doctors to lie on death certificates by listing the underlying illness as the cause of death, not the ingestion of lethal drugs: Why do that, except to conceal how many people wind up dead because of this law?

The New York Post editorial doesn't state this, but the New York bill also lacks a residency requirement, meaning New York would become a suicide destination.

Contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Contact Link) or call her at: 518-474-8390 and urge her to protect people when they are vulnerable by vetoing the assisted suicide bill.

New York faces a "slippery slope" with assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Christine Gauthier

Hollie McKay published an interesting article in the New York Sun on June 22, 2025 warning of the slippery slope that is likely to happen if New York implements it's assisted suicide bill.

McKay begins her article by interviewing Canadian veteran Christine Gauthier:

Christine Gauthier, a disabled Canadian veteran, says she was“completely shocked” when a government caseworker several years ago offered her medical aid in dying instead of basic disability support. As New York considers a similar path, her story serves as a stark warning.

“I was really depressed because of what I have been through,”Ms. Gauthier tells The New York Sun. “You won’t give me the equipment I need to live but will let me die. It was surreal.”

A former artillery expert who served during the Gulf War, Ms.Gauthier suffered irreversible spinal damage during military training in 1989. Despite undergoing multiple surgeries and competing in the 2016 Paralympics and Invictus Games, she says she’s spent the past several years fighting for a wheelchair ramp and other basic accommodations.

McKay explains that if New York's Governor Hochul does not veto the assisted suicide bill that has passed in New York's Assembly and Senate then similar stories could happen in New York.

Alex Schadenberg

McKay interviewed me, Alex Schadenberg, about the New York assisted suicide bill:

“The New York assisted suicide bill is wider than most assisted suicide laws because it does not have a waiting period and it does not have a residency requirement. The lack of a residency requirement fulfills the goal of the assisted suicide lobby that anyone in America can die by assisted suicide,” the executive director at the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Alex Schadenberg, tells the Sun.

“And the no waiting period means that a person can have a same-day death.”

McKay also reported that I said:

Mr. Schadenberg added that in many cases, both the evaluating doctors and the second assessors are closely tied to assisted suicide organizations, weakening oversight.

“There is no independent third party ensuring the law is being followed,” he said, highlighting that both eligibility and oversight are undermined, with many doctors involved in the process directly referred by pro-assisted suicide organizations.

Jessica Rodgers

McKay also received comments from Jessica Rodgers, director of the Patients Rights Action Fund:

Critics warn that once assisted death is legalized, eligibility often broadens beyond initial guardrails. “In states where assisted suicide is legal, the eligibility has expanded in practice — even without voters or lawmakers changing the laws,”

McKay explains what has happened in Canada:

While New York’s proposed law includes more restrictions than Canada’s, critics often point north to highlight how safeguards can erode. Canada’s “medical assistance in dying” program was legalized in 2016 for adults with incurable conditions and was expanded in 2021 to include those without terminal illnesses. By 2023, more than 15,000 people died through MAID — accounting for roughly one in every 20 deaths in Canada.

That’s five times higher than when the law was first enacted in2016, raising concerns that the expansion of eligibility may be fueling the rise

Canada’s MAID law is now among the most permissive globally, and by 2027 it will include patients with mental illness as their sole condition — even in the absence of any physical disease. Most recipients cite severe pain, loss of dignity, or inability to enjoy life as primary reasons for ending their lives. Canadian media have also documented cases where people sought MAID due to poverty, lack of housing, or inadequate disability benefits.

McKay examines the issue of whether or not suicide rates are affected by the legalization of assisted suicide. I responded:

“When comparing the suicide rate in the Netherlands to other European countries that have not legalized assisted death, you notice an increase in the suicide rate in the Netherlands and a decrease in the suicide rate in countries that have not legalized,” noted Mr. Schadenberg.

McKay looks further into the issue and writes:

Contrary to early hopes, legalizing assisted dying has reportedly not reduced overall suicide rates. A 2021 study in Oregon shows a 32 percent increase in the general suicide rate since legalization. European data point to similar trends— with countries like Belgium, after euthanasia legalization in 2002, reporting by 2016 the highest non-assisted suicide rate in women across Europe. In Switzerland, the female suicide rate, including assisted deaths, nearly doubled between 1998 and 2017. Assisted death has been legal since 1941, with statistics tracked since 1998. 

McKay interviews an assisted suicide lobby leader who emphasizes the support for assisted suicide in New York. McKay refers to my interview and states:

“The concept that assisted suicide is about compassion or autonomy is simply not true. These laws work by giving doctors the right in law to be involved with causing your death. That isn’t autonomy,” said Mr. Schadenberg.

“Once it is decided that death can be an answer to a difficult human condition, then it becomes discriminatory to deny it to others in a similar condition. The reality is that people can die a peaceful death without being killed. This should be the focus because this is what people want.”

McKay ends her article with a quote from Christine Gauthier:

For the likes of Ms. Gauthier, however, basic needs to get through daily life would be a long-awaited step in the right direction.

“Things are not really moving; I am back to not being able to use the elevator. I have to deal with that on top of the medical and emotional effects of it all,” she added. “I am still waiting for the surgeries. I am still isolated, so I haven’t been able to hear from anyone much.”

Links to similar articles:

• Physicians group urges New York Governor to veto assisted suicide bill (Link).
• Veterans Affairs offers euthanasia to a former Paralympian (Link).

Physicians group urges New York Governor to veto assisted suicide bill.

Dear Governor Hochul,

My name is Dr Sharon Quick and I am President of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (PCCEF), an organization without religious or political affiliation that advocates for the vulnerable at end of life. I have expertise in pediatric anesthesia, critical care, and medical ethics. We oppose A 136. Please veto this poorly constructed bill.

Summary: A 136, like other medically-assisted suicide laws, inevitably violates (rather than upholds) patient autonomy; creates (based on subjective, often inaccurate, criteria) a class of marginalized patients with the disability of terminal illness from whom the standard of medical care can be withheld; allows lethal drugs to unnecessarily substitute for good palliative care and pain control; disproportionately preys on those with mental health problems and disabilities; and destroys the foundation of medical ethics, creating distrust among patients and the health care profession. In addition, A 136 is the most radical policy in the country because it has no waiting period for obtaining lethal drugs. It also has no residency requirement which could turn New York into an international assisted suicide tourism destination for one-stop lethal drug prescriptions. Will New York citizens have to pay for funerals and/or transport of bodies back to their home states and countries? The bill makes no provision for the fact that out-of-state citizens or non-citizens may be pressured to take lethal drugs immediately and they are not required to make funeral and burial arrangements.

1. Pain should never be a reason to seek lethal drugs. Complaints of excessive symptoms indicate doctors lack palliative care knowledge, such as when to refer to pain management specialists. Lethal drugs should never be a solution for lack of education. In addition, those in significant pain lack capacity to consent for lethal drugs. Instead, improve palliative care access and expertise, which has been assessed as likely insufficient to meet the needs of New York.1 There is evidence that minorities, the uninsured, those on Medicaid, and those living in disadvantaged communities may encounter barriers to receiving palliative care.2 It would be a tragedy for these under served populations if this legislation made lethal prescriptions more accessible than palliative care.

2. This bill has no waiting period to obtain lethal drugs; no other law is so rash. Immediate death does not give adequate time for appropriate discussion and interventions for vulnerable patients who make rash decisions out of fear, depression, embarrassment, subtle pressure by a tired caregiver who makes them feel like a burden, or other reversible or transient concerns. Such patients often change their minds and no longer want to hasten death.

3. Physicians may be wrong about a patient’s prognosis, and they often miss depression and compromised decision-making capacity. Patients in WA and OR have died up to 5 years beyond their original “terminal” diagnosis and receipt of lethal drugs. Neither mental health status nor capacity are required to be assessed immediately before a patient ingests lethal drugs, which could be years after initial assessment; there is no guarantee that patients are not compromised at that time.

4. Lethal drugs are not a proportionate means of achieving palliative care goals but devalue vulnerable patients in a way that violates the very goals palliative care aims to achieve. Assisted suicide is abandonment, not health care, and is not part of palliative medicine. Lethal cocktails are bitter-tasting, sometimes mouth-burning liquids, and patients must ice their mouths with popsicles and take anti-emetics just to get them down. Risks include nausea, vomiting, aspiration, seizures, and not dying. Palliative care can do far better.

5. Lethal drug prescriptions undermine autonomy and discriminate against the disability community. Requests for lethal drugs are not primarily for pain but because of depression and/or psychological responses to disabilities developed during terminal illness--which is itself a disability by both social security and ADA criteria. This bill grants new choices and power to doctors, not patients, allowing them to treat patients unequally, subjectively placing them into either (1) a protected group (getting standard mental health care) or (2) a marginalized group with the disability of terminal illness (who can be abandoned to lethal drugs). This discriminates against the disability community and undermines autonomy by violating equality of persons. New York does not need a two-tiered health system that devalues those with the disability of terminal illness.

6. The slippery slope is real. Patients with depression and those with non-terminal diagnoses of anorexia, hernia, arthritis, and “medical complications” have received lethal drugs. Hundreds of doctors’ and patients’ consent forms are missing in Washington and Colorado.

a. In 2023, Oregonian Cody Sontag decided to avoid advanced dementia by killing herself via voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (called VSED). An Oregon doctor declared her “terminally ill” due to dehydration from VSED. He waived the waiting period, prescribed lethal drugs immediately, and Cody died from them.(3) Dehydration is not “incurable” or “irreversible,” as legally required. How many others with non-terminal diagnoses have used VSED to access lethal drugs? No one—least of all physicians whom the vulnerable must be able to trust—should be granted god-like powers to decide which disabilities make life worthless, prey on those who lack capacity, and assist with termination of those so judged.

7. There is no mechanism to enforce the law or detect abuse, which is perhaps why no sanctions have been reported. The design of this bill, like other assisted suicide laws, is a set-up for undetected elder abuse, coercion, or murder, given neither capacity re-evaluation nor the presence a neutral party are required when patients ingest lethal drugs (sometimes weeks, months, or years after initial evaluation).

8. Doctors often devalue those with disabilities. Protect the medical profession from acting on that bias by not granting them power to assist the suicides of patients disabled by terminal illness—especially a bill that has no more oversight than Oregon, where physicians are not disciplined for ending the lives of those with non-terminal illness (like Cody).

9. Protect the medical profession from distrust, both between patients and their doctors and among doctors. Patients in the northwest who are opposed to assisted suicide now have legitimate fears that doctors might overlook depression or compromised capacity, devalue them, and prescribe lethal drugs if they request hastened death while depressed or in a moment of vulnerable weakness. A death request is often a plea for help, and people often change their minds about hastening death with time, treatment, and support. Dr. Bentz lost trust in colleagues after referring a patient to an oncologist who, over Dr. Bentz’ objections, gave lethal drugs to his patient instead of treating his depression.

10. This bill contains potential conscience violations for physicians and health care employers:

a. Requires falsifying the death certificate, naming the underlying disease as the cause, rather than the actual cause of death—lethal drugs (p. 12, lines 12-14)

b. It is unclear whether an objecting health care employer can prohibit physician employees from providing information about lethal drug provision or referring patients for them, or whether objecting physicians could be forced to inform or refer for this process, both of which would violate their conscience for participation in an unethical practice that is not medical care.

11. Finally, participants do not need to be New York residents, which may allow persons out-of-state (or country) to obtain lethal drugs. These patients may not receive adequate evaluation, especially of capacity and lack of coercion, by New York physicians who may not know them well. Non-residents would be pressured to take the lethal drugs immediately in New York to avoid legal complications from ingestion in their home state/country, when many patients hold on to the drugs for weeks, months, and even years, and some never take them. New York may become an international assisted suicide tourism destination.

Please veto A 136. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Sincerely,
Sharon Quick, MD, MA (Bioethics)
President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (PCCEF)

P.O. Box 7122 Bonney Lake WA 98491 Tel: 253-501-7011 or info@pccef.org, www.pccef.org

1. CAPC. Palliative Care in New York. 2025. (Link)
2. Chambers B. How to Increase Awareness and Reduce Gaps in Palliative Care for MinoritiesJuly 9, 2020. (Link) (accessed 9-22-2024).
3. Pope TM, Brodoff L. Medical aid in dying to avoid late-stage dementia. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 2024: 1-7. (Link).

The legalization of assisted suicide is not “inevitable.”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and an EPC-USA board member.

Unfortunately, New York’s senate has voted to legalize assisted suicide, and the bill now goes to the governor’s desk. In order to ask the governor to veto the legislation, contact her. If you live in New York and can get to the capital building, please consider paying the governor’s office a visit to explain why assisted suicide will exacerbate the world’s pattern of systemic ableism.

With regard to that pattern, it’s not shocking that New York legislators would ignore the disabled community’s opposition to this policy. Despite New York’s protestations of progressivism, the state has not been particularly kind to its disabled community: the governor calling home care services a “racket,” the governor giving a speech in which the only time she mentioned disabled people was to promote increased institutionalization to stop gun violence, Andrew Cuomo allowing Covid 19 to run rampant through nursing home facilities, New York candidate Andrew Yang suggesting institutionalizing people with psychiatric disabilities so they do no harm property values, and the subway system being largely inaccessible to disabled people. In 2021 the director of New York’s ACLU delusionally said that her organization had been advocating for disabled people “for decades,” even though NYCLU’s webpage of disability rights commentary goes back only to 2020; three of the commentaries being about how wonderful “MAiD” is for the disabled community. NYCLU apparently does not care about the input from disability rights groups that really have been advocating for disability rights for decades; the national ACLU did not create a disability rights division until 2012, ninety two years after the organization was founded. So, if you are a disabled New Yorker who gets institutionalized, or your disability can become terminal without the correct support and people around you pressure you to die by assisted suicide don’t worry, the ACLU will be there for you in nine decades.

But if New York’s governor does sign its assisted suicide bill, I don’t see why New York has to doom the rest of the country. I think some opponents are likely feeling demoralized by the fear that assisted suicide being legalized in New York means it will inevitably be legalized throughout the country. If we give up and let the proponents just march in wherever they feel like it, sure, but there’s no reason why we have to do that.

It is sad that the proponents may achieve a victory in New York, but there would still be 38 states that have not legalized assisted suicide. Despite the movement of SB138 in New York, the anti assisted suicide movement still has important tools at its disposal. There is still the United Spinal lawsuit in California, and I think we have a good chance at succeeding if we can get SCOTUS to take the case.

The American Association of Suicidology’s 2023 “retirement” of its 2017 “MAiD is not suicide” statement is a huge win for us. The American Medical Association’s reaffirmation of its opposition to assisted suicide is another significant victory.

So, don’t throw in the towel. The legalization of assisted suicide is not “inevitable.” Re-double the time you spend on the issue. Look for ways in which such policies can be corrected. And this is one of the most important things I can reiterate: make sure members of the anti assisted suicide movement are working together to ensure disabled people everywhere have the support we need to flourish: a strong social support system, excellent mental health services, a good education, accessible employment, etc. These things provide a bulwark against the ableist degradation that leads to suicide, both assisted an unassisted.

Testimony of Dr Sharon Quick: In opposition to New York assisted suicide bill.

Testimony of Sharon Quick, MD, MA (Bioethics)

President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education (PCCEF)

In opposition to New York A 136 June 8, 2024

I am President of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (PCCEF), an organization without religious or political affiliation that advocates for the vulnerable at end of life. I have expertise in pediatric anesthesia, critical care, and medical ethics. We oppose A 136.

Summary: A 136, like other medically-assisted suicide laws, inevitably violates (rather than upholds) patient autonomy; creates (based on subjective, often inaccurate, criteria) a class of marginalized patients with the disability of terminal illness from whom the standard of medical care can be withheld; allows lethal drugs to unnecessarily substitute for good palliative care and pain control; disproportionately preys on those with mental health problems and disabilities; and destroys the foundation of medical ethics, creating distrust among patients and the health care profession. In addition, A 136 is the most radical policy in the country because it has no waiting period for obtaining lethal drugs.

1. Pain should never be a reason to seek lethal drugs. Complaints of excessive symptoms indicate doctors lack palliative care knowledge, such as when to refer to pain management specialists. Lethal drugs should never be a solution for lack of education. In addition, those in significant pain lack capacity to consent for lethal drugs. Instead, improve palliative care access and expertise, which has been assessed as likely insufficient to meet the needs of New York.(1) There is evidence that minorities, the uninsured, those on Medicaid, and those living in disadvantaged communities may encounter barriers to receiving palliative care.(2) It would be a tragedy for these under served populations if this legislation made lethal prescriptions more accessible than palliative care.

2. This bill has no waiting period to obtain lethal drugs; no other law is so rash. Immediate death does not give adequate time for appropriate discussion and interventions for vulnerable patients who make rash decisions out of fear, depression, embarrassment, subtle pressure by a tired caregiver who makes them feel like a burden, or other reversible or transient concerns. Such patients often change their minds and no longer want to hasten death. Terminal illness is highly associated with depression, and suicidal thinking is highest when cancer is first diagnosed and becomes less frequent as time goes on and patients get support.

3. Physicians may be wrong about a patient’s prognosis, and they often miss depression and compromised decision-making capacity. Patients in WA and OR have died up to 5 years beyond their original “terminal” diagnosis and receipt of lethal drugs. Neither mental health status nor capacity are required to be assessed immediately before a patient ingests lethal drugs, which could be years after initial assessment; there is no guarantee that patients are not compromised at that time. 

4. Lethal drugs are not a proportionate means of achieving palliative care goals but devalue vulnerable patients in a way that violates the very goals palliative care aims to achieve. Assisted suicide is abandonment, not health care, and is not part of palliative medicine. Lethal cocktails are bitter-tasting, sometimes mouth-burning liquids, and patients must ice their mouths with popsicles and take anti-emetics just to get them down. Risks include nausea, vomiting, aspiration, seizures, and not dying. Palliative care can do far better.

5. Lethal drug prescriptions undermine autonomy and discriminate against the disability community. Requests for lethal drugs are not primarily for pain but because of concerns of losing autonomy or abilities or feeling like a burden. These may be symptoms of depression and are usually psychological responses to disabilities developed during terminal illness--which is itself a disability by both social security and ADA criteria. This bill grants new choices and power to health practitioners, not patients, allowing them to treat patients unequally, subjectively placing them into either (1) a protected group (getting standard mental health care) or (2) a marginalized group with the disability of terminal illness (who can be abandoned to lethal drugs). This discriminates against the disability community and undermines autonomy by violating equality of persons. New York does not need a two-tiered health system that devalues those with the disability of terminal illness. 

6. The slippery slope is real. Patients with depression and those with non-terminal diagnoses of anorexia, hernia, arthritis, and “medical complications” have received lethal drugs. Hundreds of doctors’ and patients’ consent forms are missing in Washington and Colorado.

a. In 2023, a dementia diagnosis led Cody Sontag to voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (called VSED) to kill herself. An Oregon doctor said dehydration from VSED would soon cause death; he waived the waiting period, prescribed lethal drugs, and Cody died from them.(3) Dehydration is not “incurable” or “irreversible,” as legally required. How many others with non-terminal diagnoses have used VSED to access lethal drugs? No one—least of all physicians whom the vulnerable must be able to trust—should be granted god-like powers to decide which disabilities make life worthless, prey on those who lack capacity, and assist with termination of those so judged.

7. There is no mechanism to enforce the law or detect abuse, which is perhaps why no sanctions have been reported. The design of this bill, like other assisted suicide laws, is a set-up for undetected elder abuse, coercion, or murder, given neither capacity re-evaluation nor the presence a neutral party are required when patients ingest lethal drugs (sometimes weeks, months, or years after initial evaluation).

8. Doctors often devalue those with disabilities. Protect the medical profession from acting on that bias by not granting them power to assist the suicides of patients disabled by terminal illness—especially a law with so little oversight that physicians are not disciplined for ending the lives of those with non-terminal illness (like Cody).

9. Protect the medical profession from distrust, both between patients and their doctors and among doctors. Patients in the northwest who are opposed to assisted suicide now have legitimate fears that doctors might overlook depression or compromised capacity, devalue them, and prescribe lethal drugs if they request hastened death while depressed or in a moment of vulnerable weakness. A death request is often a plea for help, and people often change their minds about hastening death with time, treatment, and support. Dr. Bentz lost trust in colleagues after referring a patient to an oncologist who, over Dr. Bentz’ objections, gave lethal drugs to his patient instead of treating his depression.

10. This bill contains potential conscience violations for physicians and health care employers:

a. Requires falsifying the death certificate, naming the underlying disease as the cause, rather than the actual cause of death—lethal drugs (p. 12, lines 12-14)
b. It is unclear whether an objecting health care employer can prohibit physician employees from providing information about lethal drug provision or referring patients for them, both of which would violate their conscience as participation in an unethical practice that is not medical care.
c. It is unclear whether objecting physicians could be forced to inform or refer for this process in violation of their conscience.

11. Finally, participants do not need to be New York residents, which may allow out-of-state residents to obtain lethal drugs. These participants may not receive adequate evaluation, especially of capacity and lack of coercion, by New York physicians who may not know them well. Because non-residents would be forced to take the lethal drugs in New York, it may pressure patients to take the lethal drugs immediately, when many patients hold on to the drugs for weeks, months, and even years, and some decide never to take them. Given the number of people who travel to New York from around the world, this may make New York an international assisted suicide tourism destination.

Please vote no on A 136. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Sincerely,
Sharon Quick, MD, MA (Bioethics)
President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation (PCCEF)

1. CAPC. Palliative Care in New York. 2025. (Link).
2. Chambers B. How to Increase Awareness and Reduce Gaps in Palliative Care for Minorities July 9, 2020. (Link) (accessed 9-22-2024).
3. Pope TM, Brodoff L. Medical aid in dying to avoid late-stage dementia. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 2024: 1-7. (Link).