The New York State Senate approved a bill on Monday that would allow people facing terminal diagnoses to end their lives on their own terms, which the bill’s proponents say would grant a measure of autonomy to New Yorkers in their final days.
The bill, which passed the State Assembly earlier this year, will now head to the desk of Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, for her signature. It is unclear whether she plans to sign it; a spokesman for her office said she would review it.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia have passed laws permitting so-called medical aid in dying. The practice is also available in several European countries and in Canada, which recently broadened its criteria to extend the option to people with incurable chronic illnesses and disabilities.
The bill in New York is written more narrowly and would apply only to people who have an incurable and irreversible illness, with six months or less to live. Proponents say that distinction is key.
“It isn’t about ending a person’s life, but shortening their death,” said State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan Democrat and one of the sponsors of the bill. It passed on Monday night by a vote of 35 to 27, mostly along partisan lines.
He framed the measure as a statement of New York’s values, citing efforts by Republicans to increase governmental control over people’s bodies, including by restricting gender-affirming care and abortion.
“This is about personal autonomy,” he said. “This is about liberty. This is about exercising one’s own freedom to control one’s own body.”
Under the bill, New Yorkers who have received a prognosis of six months or less to live, confirmed by two doctors, would be able to request a fatal cocktail of drugs. The request must be witnessed by two adults who do not stand to inherit anything in the case of the patient’s death. The doctors can refer the patient for a psychiatric evaluation if they feel it is necessary.
The bill was first introduced a decade ago by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Westchester Democrat who leads the body’s Health Committee, at a time when few states were considering such measures.
Ms. Paulin had her own reasons for prioritizing the measure: The year before, she had watched her sister die after a battle with cancer that had left her in screaming pain.
She said the bill offered compassion to those in the most difficult circumstances.
“It’s something that could give peace of mind, relieve extraordinary pain at the end of death, and give families comfort, that they could be with their loved one when they’re dying,” Ms. Paulin said in an interview. “Why wouldn’t we do that?”
In the years since the bill was first introduced, advocates have been pushing the State Legislature to take action. One group, Compassion and Choices, estimated that it had brought hundreds of terminally ill people and their families to Albany to lobby for the bill’s passage, 28 of whom died during the course of the campaign.
Those advocates — most of whom are in their 70s, 80s and 90s — have become something of a familiar sight in Albany over the years. Stationed in a hallway between the Legislature’s office building and the Capitol, they smile at passers-by and hold placards describing the gruesome and painful deaths that terminally ill people have experienced.
Ms. Paulin said that the courage and persistence of the advocates, some of whom were terminally ill themselves, had helped get lawmakers engaged and on board. “Members got to know their faces,” Ms. Paulin said. “And then when someone died, they knew that we lost someone. And that’s very powerful.”
The bill has earned the support of a range of powerful interest and advocacy groups, including the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Psychiatric Association, the Medical Society of the State of New York and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
While it was also backed by some religious groups, including Congregation B’nai Yisrael, a Westchester synagogue, and Catholics Vote Common Good, it was staunchly opposed by the New York State Catholic Conference.
Robert Bellafiore, a spokesman for the group, called the measure a “Pandora’s box” that would erode respect for life, both when it comes to terminally ill and disabled people and more broadly.
“It tells young people, who everyone knows are in the midst of an unprecedented mental health crisis, that life is disposable, and that it’s OK to end your life if you see no hope,” Mr. Bellafiore said.
Republicans in Albany said the bill was typical of Democrats’ “misplaced” priorities.
“Assisted suicide? That’s the priority, with all the issues facing New Yorkers?” Rob Ortt, the Senate minority leader, said at a news conference on Monday.
Some Democrats have also expressed serious concerns about the measure.
“I watched my father die,” Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, the majority leader, said during a floor speech in April, in which she said she “adamantly” opposed the bill.
“He actually asked me — he wanted to die two years before he did, but he didn’t,” she said. “And because he didn’t, my grandson got a chance to know him.”
Others have argued that the legislation could be broadened in the future in ways that would exacerbate existing disparities in health care, leading to worse outcomes for communities of color, as well as for those living with chronic illness and disabilities.
“In a for-profit health care system, assisted suicide is a lethal way to control costs,” the Center for Disability Rights, a nonprofit group, argued in a position paper opposing the practice.
Other advocacy groups for people with disabilities, including The Arc, have supported the measure, which they see as a matter of bodily autonomy.
Debating the issue on the floor, many lawmakers spoke of their own loved ones.
State Senator Pete Harckham, a Democrat from the Hudson Valley, talked about his mother, who died a few months ago at the age of 98.
“Her mind was sharp. She was reading two newspapers a day. She read four books a week. But her body had failed her, she lost her dignity,” he said, his voice growing thick.
“This bill will not help my mother, but it will help someone else’s,” he said. “I vote aye.”
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
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