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This month, New York joined the growing number of states that have legalized doctor-assisted suicide. Supporters say giving patients the choice to end their lives with the help of a physician provides compassion for the dying. Opponents warn it creates larger ethical problems.
More than a dozen states and Washington, D.C., allow the practice of doctor-assisted suicide. New York became the latest when the governor legalized the Medical Aid in Dying bill this month—a move many critics say puts the country on an even more slippery slope when it comes to the issue of life and death.
Matt Sharp with Alliance Defending Freedom said, “Under this law, the floodgates are now open wide.”
“This was an incredibly difficult decision,” NY Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a website statement after she supported the controversial law.
She went on to say, “My mother died of ALS, and I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and being powerless to stop it.”
New York’s faith community is condemning Hochul’s action, with Cardinal Timothy Dolan declaring in a joint statement with the bishops of New York:
“This new law signals our government’s abandonment of its most vulnerable citizens, telling people who are sick or disabled that suicide, in their case, is not only acceptable, but is encouraged by our elected leaders.”
Other states where the practice is already legal include California, Hawaii, Delaware, Oregon, and Illinois.
New York’s bill allows a five-day waiting period before a prescription is filled and a mandatory mental health evaluation of terminally ill New Yorkers with less than six months to live.
Matt Sharp maintains these laws put the nation’s most vulnerable at risk, including “those with disabilities” and “older Americans.”
He said, “We’ve seen time and again, when you pass these laws, there becomes this sense of coercion of those individuals to say, ‘Oh, you’re too much of a burden on your family or you’re too much of a drain on the medical system.'”
Dr. Brick Lantz—vice president of advocacy and bioethics for the Christian Medical and Dental Association—tells CBN News more states are likely to follow suit.
“We expect there’s possibly more dominoes that will fall as far as other states legalizing assisted suicide, which we find, of course, very unfortunate. And we’re following the footsteps of Canada, which has legalized throughout the entire country,” Lantz said.
For some U.S. medical professionals, the issue boils down to religious conscience.
Sharp said, “It’s not just dispensing the drug or being there next to the person, but anything that is pushing a person to take their own life rather than trying to save their life—to do no harm—that violates their deep religious convictions.”
According to Lantz, honoring such convictions—along with the natural order of life and death—is what matters most.
“It is up to the medical community to advocate for those who are near death,” Lantz said. “And I think that the influence should go into palliative care, improving palliative care, because there is a way to die well.”
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