New York pro-life leaders are urging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to protect the vulnerable and veto a bill that would legalize assisted suicide.
Bishop Robert Brennan of the Diocese of Brooklyn told The Tablet in a June 10 report how vetoing the bill, called the Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) Act, would be consistent with the steps Hochul has taken to increase suicide prevention resources in the state, where the numbers of such deaths have reached crisis levels.
“This is where we’re going to try to be hopeful with the governor; she’s given indications that she would sign it, but she’s taking it under consideration – well, I hope she’ll take it under consideration in a way that’s consistent with her bold actions in terms of suicide prevention,” the bishop remarked in a Current Events interview.
He noted that it sends “a very mixed message” to say “there are times when life is not worth living,” and asked, “What messages are you sending to somebody who is suffering severe crises?”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, has spoken out similarly in recent weeks. He wrote in a May 29 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that a state that has worked so much to prevent suicides in its communities should not be simultaneously trying to legalize physician-assisted suicide. He wrote that he prays that Hochul will “step up to protect human life” and defeat the bill.
The New York Senate passed the bill 35-27 on June 9, sending it to Hochul. Following that vote, Cardinal Dolan reiterated his stance in a June 11 X post, writing, “I hope that our Governor Hochul, who has been very strong in helping those suffering through the mental health crisis, does the courageous thing and vetoes it!”
New York State Catholic Conference Executive Director Dennis Poust told The Tablet that Hochul “has made access to mental health care a hallmark of her tenure as governor” and that the bill undermines her suicide prevention efforts.
The New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide warned that assisted suicide especially endangers people with disabilities and that legalizing the practice sends “a dangerous societal message that their lives are less valuable,” according to The Tablet.
The Alliance warned, “When support systems fail, insurance coverage is uneven, and ableism pervades our institutions, what looks like ‘choice’ can quickly become pressure.”
From the physician’s perspective, the bill also violates the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm,” as the president of the Catholic Medical Association’s Finger Lakes Guild, Dr. Thomas Carroll, told The Tablet.
Legalizing assisted suicide “undermines the very purpose of medicine,” Carroll said, “and it risks changing our role fundamentally from caregiver to death dealer.”
When the bill advanced June 9, Poust issued a statement about the dark tipping point New York has brought itself to and about who can stop it from falling over the edge.
“For the first time in its history, New York is on the verge of authorizing doctors to help their patients commit suicide,” Poust said. “Make no mistake — this is only the beginning, and the only person standing between New York and the assisted suicide nightmare unfolding in Canada is Governor Hochul.”
Canada began its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program in 2016 with several restrictions, which belied the threat of legalizing euthanasia.
Within mere years, MAiD eligibility has been expanded so dramatically that it has become the country’s fifth-leading cause of death.
>> Physician warns patients are being ‘rushed’ to euthanasia through MAiD program <<
The lives of Canadians who aren’t suffering from terminal illnesses have also been at stake. In 2021 the MAiD program expanded its eligibility to people suffering from non-terminal illnesses.
In a heartbreaking testimony shared in March 2025, Canadian citizen Christopher Lyon spoke about how his father had been suicidal for years and the country’s MAiD regime merely accommodated his death.
“When MAiD came along, it was the perfect flattery. It’s telling him suicide is okay,” Lyon said in the interview with anti-MAiD activist Amanda Achtman. “It’s telling him it’s dignity, it’s somehow even beautiful.”
Lyon’s father, who didn’t have a terminal illness, was eligible to apply for MAiD because he suffered chronically from arthritis and diabetes. He was euthanized at age 77.
In November 2024, Quebec enacted a law that enables people with diagnoses like dementia to be euthanized without their consent if they have made a request for it some months or years in advance.