{"id":73834,"date":"2025-12-17T22:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73834\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T22:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:09:07","slug":"catholic-bishops-speak-out-as-new-york-governor-pledges-to-sign-into-law-assisted-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73834\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic bishops speak out as New York governor pledges to sign into law assisted suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n \"Kate
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

By Kate Qui\u00f1ones<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2025 \/
\n 17:00 pm<\/p>\n

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign into law an assisted suicide bill that Catholic leaders have ardently opposed, making New York the 13th state to allow the practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hochul, who called it an \u201cincredibly difficult decision,\u201d said she will sign the bill after lawmakers add some \u201cguardrails.\u201d The bill<\/a> allows doctors to give terminally ill patients drugs to end their lives. Hochul\u2019s additions to the law include requiring a waiting period, a recorded oral request for death, and a health evaluation. The law will go into effect six months after signing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and other New York bishops have been outspoken against the legislation, issuing several statements<\/a> opposing it. In a brief meeting <\/a>with Hochul over the summer, Dolan urged her not to sign the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law similar assisted suicide legislation. Other jurisdictions that permit assisted suicide include: California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

Hochul, who is a Catholic University of America alumna, said in a Dec. 17 statement<\/a> that the bill will enable people \u201cto suffer less \u2014 to shorten not their lives, but their deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York has long been a beacon of freedom, and now it is time we extend that freedom to terminally ill New Yorkers who want the right to die comfortably and on their own terms,\u201d Hochul said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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,\u201d she continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a joint statement, Cardinal Dolan and the bishops of New York state said they were \u201cextraordinarily troubled\u201d by Gov. Hochul’s announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bishops say the law endangers the vulnerable, calling assisted suicide \u201ca grave moral evil\u201d that \u201cis in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new law signals our government\u2019s 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,\u201d the Dec. 17 statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Patients\u2019 Rights Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that opposes assisted suicide on the grounds that it is inherentaly discriminatory, said that \u201csafeguards\u201d in bills like the one Hochul said she would sign \u201care falling short\u201d where they exist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amendments added that try to address the serious dangers that come with legalizing assisted suicide do nothing to protect people who deserve care and support from the state and their medical teams,\u201d Matt Valli\u00e8re, who heads the group, said in a Dec. 17 statement shared with CNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Citing the tragic case of Eileen Mihich<\/a>, a woman struggling with mental illness who died under the assisted suicide law in Washington state, Valli\u00e8re said that \u201cit is impossible to prevent abuse of the law in which people not on the verge of dying can utilize assisted suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no true accountability to protect patients from potential harm, abuse, or coercion,\u201d Valli\u00e8re continued.<\/p>\n

The New York bishops also raised concerns about mental health, saying the law \u201cwill seriously undermine\u201d anti-suicide and mental health care efforts made by Hochul.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can any society have credibility to tell young people or people with depression that suicide is never the answer, while at the same time telling elderly and sick people that it is a compassionate choice to be celebrated?\u201d the bishops stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Story continues below)<\/p>\n

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The bishops urged the state to instead invest in palliative care, which is medicine focused on relieving suffering and improving quality of life for people with serious illnesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call on Catholics and all New Yorkers to reject physician-assisted suicide for themselves, their loved ones, and those in their care,\u201d the bishops said. \u201cAnd we pray that our state turns away from its promotion of a culture of death and invest instead in life-affirming, compassionate hospice and palliative care, which is seriously underutilized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valli\u00e8re also called for better access to palliative care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGov. Hochul\u2019s statements undermine the importance of hospice and palliative care, which provides the compassionate end-of-life experience for which so many are advocating, but is drastically underutilized in New York,\u201d Valli\u00e8re said. \u201cWe need more access to this care, not a fast track to death in the absence of it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"Kate
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Kate Qui\u00f1ones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix. She has been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register, and CatholicVote, and she graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kate Qui\u00f1ones CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2025 \/ 17:00 pm New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37203,8576,3734,3932,9,11,10,49,51,50,37327,618],"class_list":{"0":"post-73834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-assisted-suicide","9":"tag-cardinal-timothy-dolan","10":"tag-catholic-news","11":"tag-gov-kathy-hochul","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-patients-rights-action-fund","19":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}