NY State Now Has an Opinion on When You Should Die

New York didn’t just cross a line.

It erased it.

Governor Kathy Hochul says she’s reached a deal to legalize medically assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The language is antiseptic—Medical Aid in Dying. The rhetoric is soaked in compassion. The intent, we’re told, is mercy.

But let’s stop pretending this is a gentle policy tweak.

This is the government formally declaring that, under the right circumstances, death is an acceptable—and medically endorsed—solution.

Once the state does that, everything changes.

Supporters keep pointing to safeguards. They always do. Multiple doctors. Waiting periods. Mental-capacity reviews. A narrow group. Limited scope. No slippery slope.

That’s the script. Every time.

Here’s the problem: safeguards are temporary. Cultural permission is permanent.

Once assisted suicide becomes law, the moral question is settled by statute. From that point forward, the only debate is how wide the door should open. And history—whether in healthcare, bioethics, or bureaucratic power—shows us exactly how that story ends.

The definition expands.

The exceptions multiply.

The pressure becomes quieter—but stronger.

Ask the disabled community why they’re alarmed. Not hypothetically—practically. They know what it’s like to live in a system that already treats dependency as inconvenience and cost as character. In that system, “choice” is rarely neutral.

When someone is old, sick, isolated, depressed, or financially draining, the question is no longer Do you want to live?

It becomes Why are you still here?

And let’s dispense with the comforting fiction that this is happening in a healthcare system that has exhausted all other options. New York routinely fails at providing comprehensive palliative care, mental-health treatment, hospice access, and long-term support for families. We ration care quietly—and now we’re offering death openly.

That is not compassion.

That is triage dressed up as virtue.

Governor Hochul says her personal faith gave her pause. Good. It should have stopped her.

Because this is not just about individual autonomy. Suicide does not occur in a vacuum. It is shaped by signals—social, economic, cultural, and now legal. When the state blesses suicide under certain conditions, it sends a message whether it intends to or not: some lives are negotiable.

Once that message is out there, it will not stay confined to terminal illness. It never does.

New York is not empowering patients. It is normalizing abandonment.

We are telling the suffering that the ultimate form of care is not relief, presence, or commitment—but permission to disappear.

That’s not progress.

That’s surrender.

And history will not remember this as a compassionate breakthrough. It will remember it as the moment the state decided that standing with the vulnerable was harder than stepping aside and calling it choice.