The State of New York has maintained a long-standing ban on assisted suicide. Now, that is coming into question.
In 2017, the State’s highest court voted unanimously against its legalization. Underscoring the threat, Justice Eugene Fahey wrote that, “[l]egalizing physician-assisted suicide would convey a societal value judgment that such ‘indignities’ as physical vulnerability and dependence mean that life no longer has any intrinsic value.”
However, just last week, the “Medical Aid in Dying Act” passed in the New York Assembly and now, the New York State Senate will soon vote on whether to legalize the practice of allowing physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill individuals who request them. There are many serious problems with the law, including that physicians have the duty to preserve lives, not help in prematurely ending them, and there is the risk that an assisted suicide law could cause patients to prematurely take their lives based on inaccurate diagnoses or predictions about life expectancy. There are also many sources that cite grave concern over the potential manipulation by for-profit medical centers seeking to take advantage for monetary gain.
Although the “slippery slope” argument often draws ire and eyerolls from proponents of any given issue, it is by now widely known that in Canada, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) was passed in 2016, and within just a few years, shifted from terminally-ill assisted suicide provisions (Track 1: Natural Death is Reasonably Foreseeable) to allow those with chronic conditions to end their lives. And in two more years, as of March 2027, ‘persons suffering solely from mental illness’ will be eligible for MAID (Track 2: Natural Death is Not Reasonably Foreseeable). Statistics released by Health Canada show that the rate of assisted dying in Canada increased by nearly 16% in 2023 alone. MAID now accounts for 1 in 20 deaths in Canada.Those are the rates of heart disease in the US.
According to an article published in Voices in Bioethics, MAID is ethically justified for persons with mental illnesses on the grounds of “upholding human rights, labour obligations, and dignity.” This last keyword is of note, as the 2023 Oregon “Death with Dignity” Act, cites that one of the top three most frequently reported end-of-life concerns is loss of dignity (64%). Have these legislators not read the Preamble to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, one of the most fundamental pieces of international law, which confirms that, “[w]hereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…”
There is a dangerous contradiction at play.
The growing trend to enact legislation enabling medically assisted suicide is so deeply concerning that Special Rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council issued a statement of alarm back in 2021: “[w]e all accept that it could never be a well-reasoned decision for a person belonging to any other protected group – be it a racial minority, gender or sexual minorities – to end their lives because they experience suffering on account of their status.” The statement continues that the “assumptions behind medically assisted suicide are grounded in ableism and associated stereotypes… Disability is not a burden or a deficit of the person. It is a universal aspect of the human condition.”
What is the architecture of ‘choice?’
Amy Paulin, the Democrat Chair of the Assembly Health Committee, insists that the NY bill is about choice. But as Krista Carr, CEO of Inclusion Canada, said, the connotations around assisted suicide being a “choice” dismisses the true distress and helplessness that a variety of people with disabilities feel and experience on a daily basis. The UN experts echo this concern, given that people with disabilities, older persons, and especially older persons with disabilities, can feel pressured to end their lives prematurely. “People with disabilities living in poverty is significantly higher, and in some countries double, than that of people without disabilities…Set against the legacy of accumulated disadvantages their ‘architecture of choice’ could hardly be said to be unproblematic.”
As described in the World Youth Alliance White Paper on Euthanasia, “making physicians the arbiters of assisted suicide and euthanasia is a return to one of the most severe forms of paternalism, not a victory for patient autonomy.” Thus, the argument of autonomy is a failing one, as it ignores the reality that assisted suicide is not completed as a solitary, independent act but requires medical intervention by trained professionals (who have had to take oaths to maintain medical ethics) and includes the need for social acceptance of the act. Assisted suicide is not a means of self-determination but a violation of it.
As WYA Director of Policy & Research, Mislav Barišić, said, “[t]his concerning legislative trend is coming to all of our countries, if it is not present already.” If the Medical Aid in Dying Act is passed in the New York Senate, the final stage would be for it to attain a signature by Governor Kathy Hochul, at which point it would take effect immediately. WYA will continue to monitor the status of the New York Senate’s response to the assisted suicide Bill and encourage all of its members to speak up about the perils of this type of legislation.
Read the latest report from WYA on assisted suicide in the UK here to stay up to date.
