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New York’s controversial assisted suicide law has come into force, allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill adults despite sustained opposition from Catholic leaders, disability advocates, and pro-life campaigners.
The Medical Aid in Dying Act took effect on 5th August after being signed by Governor Kathy Hochul in February. It permits adults with a “prognosis of six months or less to live” to request drugs to procure their suicide.
To qualify, patients must be adults, surveyed as mentally capable, and physically able to self-administer the medication. They must make both written and verbal requests, while the law also includes a five-day waiting period and provision for mental health assessments in select cases.
The New York State Catholic Conference said the law amounted to an abandonment of the most vulnerable.
“This new law signals our government’s 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,” it said.
Catholic leaders have also criticised the law as an example of a “throwaway culture” in which suffering is answered with death rather than care.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored an earlier version of the Bill, called its commencement a “historic day for compassion, dignity, and personal autonomy”.
Governor Hochul similarly argued that the law would give terminally ill New Yorkers greater control over how they die.
This comes after her December 2025 comment that killing the vulnerable can be reconciled with her Catholic upbringing because “God is merciful and compassionate.”
It is not a mercy to incorporate assisted suicide into regular healthcare. The expectation of carers and medical staff blur with the dual responsibility of offering care and facilitating death.
The Act was passed by the New York State Legislature in June 2025 after years of campaigning. Although religious institutions are granted certain exemptions, many care providers in the historically Catholic city have continued to voice concerns over conscience protections, leading to legal action by a group of nuns who are forced to refer patients to the state’s hitmen.
This happens as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has been reintroduced to the House of Commons as part of the wealthy death lobby’s plan to circumvent the House of Lords to bring a fearfully terrible state suicide law to England and Wales. It will be debated on 11th September despite the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, saying that the country’s health and social care systems are not prepared.
SPUC’s Executive Director, Michael Robinson, says: “New York now joins a growing number of US jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal. Sadly, it will become another case study to bolster the fact that state-sanctioned suicide cannot ever be safe. The best response to to illness, dependency, and suffering will be that of the nuns of New York City: empathetic care in the image of Jesus. The so-called “mercy killings” of assisted suicide regimes are dangerous and insufficient.”
