Assisted Suicide Bill Clears Legislative Hurdle

A bill that would authorize people with terminal illnesses to request life-ending drugs from a physician has cleared a hurdle in New York’s state Legislature.

From The Herald:

The proposal would require two physicians to certify the patient’s illness is terminal. Physicians could refuse to agree to the request for any reason.

The Assembly’s Health Committee passed the bill Monday. It faces significant challenges in the full Legislature, but advocates hailed the committee’s vote as a “historic” step.

Click here to continue reading at The Herald.

12 Comments

  • Don't get sick in New York if this bill passes

    There are so many cases where family members of people who are ill, in states that have this kind of legislation, “convince” authorities that the ill person “wouldn’t want to live this way,” and their deaths are hastened by so-called “assisted suicide” — a sanitized term for what is really “murder.”

    There is a huge conflict of interest in legislation like this: In the medical and health insurance world, it is far cheaper to “assist” in one’s demise, than it is to honor Hashem’s law that every moment of a person’s life is precious and not to be abridged.

    (There are of course Torah guidelines such as not employing “extraordinary measures” at a certain point in specific cases, etc., but this is very different from what this proposed law facilitates.)

    Let those who believe in such “rights” travel to another country — there are many — who practice this kind of barbarity.

  • yankel

    contact your congresman and assemblyman tell them you oppose this law.

  • Good idea

    This is actually really important. Assisted suicide can be the sole sparer of a significant amount of physical, mental, and emotional pain for people with terminal illnesses. If I knew that I was going to die from brain cancer, I wouldn’t want to go through treatments that would PROLONG my suffering, make me sick, etc. If I was just able to take a lethal dosage of pills, go to sleep and pass away peacefully I would be much happier.

    • @ #3

      Even a person with terminal illness who tries to jump of a bridge would be stopped. We don’t need laws that turn doctors into murderers! The Nazis did that.
      No more.

  • the problem is

    · There is no protection for those seeking assisted suicide because they suffer from treatable depression or any other mental health issue

    · Predictions that someone will die in six months are often wrong;

    · Abuse of elders and people with disabilities is a growing but often undetected problem

    · If assisted suicide is legalized, it will quickly become the cheapest alternative to medical treatment.

    http://www.lifenews.com/2016/05/24/new-york-assembly-health-committee-passes-bill-to-legalize-assisted-suicide/

  • Andrea Schonberger

    In 2008 Washington state passed the Death with Dignity Act. It’s not as simple as one might think and many hurdles have to be jumped in order to even qualify:

    http://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/IllnessandDisease/DeathwithDignityAct/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

    I did vote in favor of the law. Perhaps I’m wrong but I don’t feel it’s right to make people suffer due to a terminal illness when no cure is available. I want people to have a good death, calm and pain-free.

    • @ Andrea Schonberger

      G-d did not give us the right to chose to die. I’m shocked you voted for something so blatantly against the Torah.
      If the patient is so desperate to die, a simple bottle of Tylenol can do the job. We shouldn’t assist.

  • Picaboo Shimon

    While I value every moment of my life, and I have instructed my family that if chas v’sholom I ever have a serious medical condition that I want every machine and technology available to be used to keep me alive, even if it means I will only be alive in a vegetative state, because who knows- maybe after a few years science will find a cure for my ailment and I can go on to live many more happy years…
    But I also respect the will of others, and if someone is in tremendous pain and decides suicide will end their pain, then they should have the right to do it, and do it peacefully and with dignity.

    May G-d bless us all with good health and long life and may we never have to be in a situation to make these hard decisions.