There is almost no chance that Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) vetoes New York state’s Senate- and Assembly-passed suicide bill. It won’t be entirely her fault.
To call the practice “physician-assisted suicide” is far from describing the proposed law too harshly. The Medical Aid in Dying Act permits assisted suicide for the terminally ill, in the form of a self-administered drug cocktail, and available under the condition that the patient has an estimated six months or less to live. There will be almost no waiting period, and there is little detail as to what qualifies the two referring physicians. The cause of death will be listed as the “underlying illness,” not the given drugs.
All of which is nonsensical when supporters of the bill note how strict it is compared to, say, Canada’s assisted suicide laws. The slippery slope to disability euthanasia is well-documented by European countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as by the growing number of U.S. states that have or are considering laws similar to the MAID Act. Once enough states accept it, the Overton Window will shift.
The groundwork for that shift already lies in New York’s bill: “If the attending physician or the consulting physician determines that the patient may lack capacity to make an informed decision due to a condition, including, but not limited to, a psychiatric or psychological disorder,” then the physician “shall refer the patient to a mental health professional for a determination of whether the patient has capacity.”
A system easily gamed, especially when “a patient who requests medication under the article will not, because of that request, be considered a person who is suicidal.” Any determination of mental unfitness is readily obscured by a redefinition of “suicidal.” Find the right physicians, and malintent is no obstacle.
So there is precedent at home and abroad, while Hochul sets a precedent for herself as a loyal member of the Left. She shields doctors who traffic abortion drugs into states where the practice is illegal, and refuses to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Those are two key items on the Left’s propaganda list. On that list, they collude absolutely. MAID, with the liberal narrative of “dying on your own terms” surrounding it, falls into it by virtue of the crown jewel: bodily autonomy.
Much of the Democratic agenda is veiled with ideals of “the good life,” all shifting toward the fanciful notion of making America more like Europe, especially Scandinavia. Mass immigration is already doing a good bit of the work, and liberal abortion laws help, too. Socialized healthcare is another primary effort. Europe is ahead of the United States on physician-assisted suicide, even if it’s not talked about as casually.
Those ideas, of course, all revolve around making life infinitely more comfortable. We have pursued liberation, ease, and preference to the degree that these modern benefits are hardly recognizable as such. Now, even at the end of their lives, we decline to offer people perseverance — the one thing anyone actually needs.
Instead, we offer the illusion of complete autonomy. As much as proponents of MAID emphasize that the distinction between suicide for the “incurably” ill and for the disabled “is key” to its moral admissibility, it’s not. The libertarians will insist on bodily autonomy, and they are consistent in doing so. A Democratic sponsor of the bill has said plainly that, as with everything else, “This is about personal autonomy. This is about liberty.”
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Distinguishing between qualifying criteria for MAID, then, is moot. But if bodily autonomy is one’s whole worldview, it must be confusing when a chronic illness forces the option of suicide.
One thing that is crystal clear, though, is that most of the pain given in testimony for physician-assisted suicide is the pain of people who have watched their loved ones suffer. That’s where most personal sadness comes from, and why we can’t trust the testimonies of the decently healthy people advocating MAID. Therefore, the bill is vague, which is enough incentive for Hochul to sign it.