Governor Hochul’s announcement that she will support and sign the amended Medical Aid in Dying Act, which legalizes state-sanctioned suicide, early next year is a tragic development for all New Yorkers.
The sacredness of life has been the bedrock of all faiths and our Western value system. All who possess life, regardless of status or race, are created in the “image of God” (Genesis, 1:27) and are therefore deserving of dignity; this has been the driving value behind the personal rights that our country affords every one of its citizens. Though we firmly believe in personal freedoms, to deconsecrate life by allowing suicide, thereby implying that some lives are less sacred than others, is to take a giant step backward in the moral progress of society.
We understand that not all New Yorkers share the religious community’s perspective on the sanctity of life and that those facing death from terminal illness may seek to avoid a prolonged dying process. The road ahead of the terminally ill is indeed fearsome. We must enable and encourage our medical and social systems to provide more meaningful support to patients and their families, preserve the dignity of every patient, and deliver more and better therapeutic care and pain management.
Despite amendments to the bill which seek to limit the practice, opening the door to assisted suicide signals our descent down the slippery slope of individuals and families forced to weigh more time with their loved one against the financial considerations of prolonged end of life care. In every jurisdiction where laws of this kind have passed, they have indeed descended the slope, expanding from the terminal to the treatable and from a right to die to a de facto obligation. We must not accept such an outcome.