The New York State Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would legalize medically assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses.
The legislation, called “The Medical Aid in Dying Act” passed the Assembly 81-67 and will now go before the state Senate, Fox News reported.
The bill specifies that a mentally competent adult with less than six months to live could choose to be prescribed lethal drugs. Democrat Assemblywoman Amy Paulin said she decided to introduce the measure after he sister died of ovarian cancer.
“I don’t know whether she would have availed herself of this medication if she had the opportunity, but I can tell you that when she died, I wasn’t there,” Paulin said.
“When she died, my other sisters were not there, and that was her wish,” she added.
Democrat Assemblywoman Karines Reyes argued that it is “inhumane for us to tell people that we are forcing them to continue their suffering.”
But other lawmakers questioned the ethics and morals of state-sanctioned assisted suicide.
“I watched my mom die. I watched my daughter die. And I know that for a fact that none of us are getting out of here alive,” Democrat Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes said on the Assembly floor, the New York Post reported. “At some point or the other, we’re all going to go, but I don’t believe there should be a combination of six drugs offered to someone to end their life.”
Republican Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh argued against the measure, stating that “each and every life has value.”
“Progress may not be on a straight line and will look different to each of us, but this idea of giving up and dying is not excelsior, ever upward. It’s incredibly sad,” she said, referencing the state’s motto.
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) did not say whether she will bring up the assisted suicide bill for a floor vote, but she did say she will discuss the measure with her colleagues.
Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul has not indicated whether she will sign the bill if it passes both chambers of the state legislature.
Ten states and Washington, DC, have legalized physician-assisted suicide, as have several other countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton
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