Catholic bishops speak out as New York governor pledges to pass assisted suicide bill

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2025 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign an assisted suicide bill that Catholic leaders have ardently opposed, making New York the 13th state to allow the practice.

Hochul, who called it an “incredibly difficult decision,” said she will sign the bill after lawmakers add some “guardrails.” The bill allows doctors to give terminally ill patients drugs to end their lives. Hochul’s additions to the law include requiring a waiting period, a recorded oral request for death, and a health evaluation. The law will go into effect six months after signing.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and other New York bishops have been outspoken against the bill, issuing several statements opposing it. In a brief meeting with Hochul over the summer, Dolan urged her not to sign the bill.

Earlier this week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a similar assisted suicide bill. Other jurisdictions that permit assisted suicide include: California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Hochul, who is a Catholic University of America alumna, said in a Dec. 17 statement that the bill will enable people “to suffer less — to shorten not their lives, but their deaths.”

“New York has long been a beacon of freedom, and now it is time we extend that freedom to terminally ill New Yorkers who want the right to die comfortably and on their own terms,” Hochul said.

“My mother died of ALS, and I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and being powerless to stop it,” she continued.

In a joint statement, Dolan and the bishops of New York state said they were “extraordinarily troubled” by the announcement.

The bishops say the law endangers the vulnerable, calling assisted suicide “a grave moral evil” that “is in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life.”

“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,” the Dec. 17 statement said.

The Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that opposes assisted suicide on the grounds that it is inherently discriminatory, said that “safeguards” in bills like the one Hochul said she would sign “are falling short” where they exist.

“The amendments added that try to address the serious dangers that come with legalizing assisted suicide do nothing to protect people who deserve care and support from the state and their medical teams,” Matt Vallière, who heads the group, said in a Dec. 17 statement shared with CNA.

Citing the tragic case of Eileen Mihich, a woman struggling with mental illness who died under the assisted suicide law in Washington state, Vallière said that “it is impossible to prevent abuse of the law in which people not on the verge of dying can utilize assisted suicide.”

“There is no true accountability to protect patients from potential harm, abuse, or coercion,” Vallière continued.

The New York bishops also raised concerns about mental health, saying the law “will seriously undermine” anti-suicide and mental health care efforts made by Hochul.

“How can any society have credibility to tell young people or people with depression that suicide is never the answer, while at the same time telling elderly and sick people that it is a compassionate choice to be celebrated?” the bishops stated.

The bishops urged the state to instead invest in palliative care, which is medicine focused on relieving suffering and improving quality of life for people with serious illnesses.

“We call on Catholics and all New Yorkers to reject physician-assisted suicide for themselves, their loved ones, and those in their care,” the bishops said. “And we pray that our state turns away from its promotion of a culture of death and invest instead in life-affirming, compassionate hospice and palliative care, which is seriously underutilized.”

Vallière also called for better access to palliative care.

“Gov. Hochul’s statements undermine the importance of hospice and palliative care, which provides the compassionate end-of-life experience for which so many are advocating, but is drastically underutilized in New York,” Vallière said. “We need more access to this care, not a fast track to death in the absence of it.”

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