Despite the best efforts of the well-funded activist group Compassion & Choices (formerly “The Hemlock Society”), many deep-blue states have rejected physician-assisted suicide (PAS).
This includes progressive states like Illinois, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. Connecticut has fended off attempts to pass PAS for 13 straight years. Last year, deep blue Maryland defeated it for the ninth year in a row.
New York State has also rejected attempts to pass PAS for nearly a decade, but this year it looks like advocates may find a way to pass it both the Assembly and state Senate. With that in mind, I make the following plea to Gov. Hochul: veto the PAS bill. Reasons for doing this go well beyond your Catholic faith — and include your political commitments to the disabled, to authentic and nonviolent medical care, and to suicide prevention.
One of the reasons that PAS has done so poorly in the deep-blue Northeast is because of our commitment to people with disabilities. Time after time, disabled populations showed us to testify before various committees about how, when we make judgements about which populations should be able to legally kill themselves, we make judgements about the value of disabled lives.
Since the 1990s, physical pain hasn’t made the top five reasons people in Oregon request PAS. Instead, the requests come because of fear of loss of autonomy, fear of loss of enjoyable activities, and fear of being a burden on others. Disabled activists ask: Does this remind you of anyone? You’re suggesting that you can understand why people like us should want to kill themselves!
Governor, you have made such a profound commitment to disability rights, including increased discrimination enforcement, launching disability rights awareness month, and appointment of a chief disability offer. Please hear the cry of disability rights groups — virtually all of which are vociferously against PAS — and veto this terrible legislation.
Another group of people who are still against PAS (again, despite massive spending trying to bend them in a different direction) is the American Medical Association. They remain strongly against the practice because they worry about social slippage and the impossibility of controlling it once legalized.
But perhaps their most important argument is that PAS is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer. Once violence and killing can be seen as part of what a physician does, a coherent concept of health care simply falls apart — and it simply becomes just another kind of market transaction.
Governor, you have made such a commitment to health care focused on the most vulnerable, including Medicaid, home care, mental health, and public health. Please hear the warnings of the American Medical Association that the very notion of health care itself is up for grabs and veto this terrible legislation.
Finally, New York has a powerful presumption for protecting the vulnerable from suicide. We hang nets around our bridges. Our skyscrapers refuse to allow windows to open over a certain height. Anti-suicide hotlines and links to other resources pop up if our Google search even mentions the term. Police and even random passers by will physically restrain someone to stop them from ending their lives.
Governor, you’ve made suicide prevention a key part of your programing — adding millions in funding and grants, particularly for veterans and first responders. Please hear the warnings of those working on suicide prevention — especially when they note that legalized PAS actually increases suicides overall — and veto this terrible legislation.
Critics of the position I just laid out will suggest it is alarmism and scare-mongering, but the disaster we’ve seen in Canada over just the past few years indicates that it is anything but.
From people with disabilities being rejected for wheelchair ramps (and offered PAS), to those with profound chemical sensitivities being denied new public housing (and offered PAS) — and thousands of other terrible stories in between — our neighbors to the north have invited a horror show into their midst. Next, it looks like it is coming for populations with dementia. We must keep this out of New York.
Pope Francis was right to refer to PAS as “false compassion.” Instead of undermining our commitments to the disabled, to health care, and to suicide prevention, we should focus on better pain management, improving care for the disabled and older adults, and funding nonviolent health care focused on the most vulnerable.
This, not medically supervised killing, is what true compassion for vulnerable New Yorkers looks like.
Camosy is professor of bioethics at the Creighton School of Medicine and a moral theology fellow at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers.
