law in Illinois<\/a> signed last week that goes into effect next year.<\/p>\nNew York\u2019s Medical Aid in Dying Act requires that a terminally ill person who is expected to die within six month make a written request for life-ending drugs. Two witnesses would have to sign the request to ensure that the patient is not being coerced. The request would then have to be approved by the person\u2019s attending physician as well as a consulting physician.<\/p>\n
The governor said the bill’s sponsors and legislative leaders have agreed to add provisions to require confirmation from a medical doctor that the person \u201ctruly had less than six months to live,\u201d along with confirmation from a psychologist or psychiatrist that the patient is capable of making the decision and is not under duress.<\/p>\n
Hochul also said the bill will include a mandatory five-day waiting period as well as a written and recorded oral request to \u201cconfirm free will is present.\u201d Outpatient facilities associated with religious hospitals may elect not to offer the option.<\/p>\n
She added that she wants the bill to apply only to New York residents. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that a similar law in New Jersey applies only to residents of that state and not those from beyond its borders.<\/p>\n
Hochul said she will sign the bill into law next year, with her changes weaved into the proposal. It will go into effect six months after it is signed.<\/p>\n
Later on Wednesday, Hochul said supporting the bill was one of the toughest decisions she has made as governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho am I to deny you or your loved one what they\u2019re begging for at the end of their life?” she said. “I couldn\u2019t do that any longer.”<\/p>\n
The legislation was first introduced in 2016 but stalled for years amid opposition from New York State Catholic Conference and other groups. The Catholic organization argued the measure would devalue human life and undermine the physician\u2019s role as a healer.<\/p>\n
In a statement after the governor’s announcement, Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the New York’s bishops said Hochul’s position \u201csignals 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<\/p>\n
New York lawmakers approved the legislation during their regulation session earlier this year. Supporters said it would reduce suffering for terminally ill people and let them die on their own terms.<\/p>\n
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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 New York is set to become the latest state to legalize medically assisted suicide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37196,303,34199,417,2953,9,24,55,54,37356,56,37195,87,7675,421],"class_list":["post-73935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-assisted-suicide-and-euthanasia","tag-crime","tag-death-and-dying","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-terminally-ill-medical-suicide","tag-ny","tag-pain-management","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73935","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=73935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}