Summary
New York’s current law prohibits the practice of physician-assisted suicide, wherein doctors prescribe lethal doses of drugs to end the lives of terminally ill patients who wish to die. Three health care professionals and three terminally ill persons unsuccessfully challenged this law (NYS Penal Law Sections 125.15(3) and 120.30) in 1994.

Conference Position
The Catholic Conference seeks to maintain New York State’s current prohibition on assisted suicide while ensuring increased support, resources, care, appropriate pain relief and treatment for the terminally ill.

Rationale
In 1994 Dr. Timothy Quill and two colleagues, together with three terminally ill patients, brought a lawsuit alleging that New York State’s ban on assisted suicide is unconstitutional (Quill v. Koppell). The plaintiffs argued that mentally competent terminally ill patients have a federal constitutional right to “hasten their inevitable death” through the use of physician-prescribed medications.

The case took three years to reach the highest Court in the United States, which upheld New York’s ban in 1997 (Quill v. Vacco). The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to suicide or assisted suicide and that state legislatures have the right to decide these life-and-death issues through the democratic process.

Bills have been introduced in the New York Legislature to legalize physician-assisted suicide. New York State must maintain its current prohibition on assisted suicide. Lifting the ban would provide a deadly, unnecessary option to dying patients, many of whom legitimately fear pain, depression and abandonment. These persons can be significantly helped through pain relief, palliative care, the hospice environment and compassionate loving care.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states clearly: “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.” (# 2277)

The New York State Task Force on Life and the Life unanimously rejected the legalization of assisted suicide in its 1994 report, noting that the practice “will pose the greatest risks to those who are poor, elderly, members of a minority group or without access to good medical care.”

In 1996 the American Medical Association stated, “Patients need to know that our goal in providing care will always be to relieve suffering and never to eliminate the sufferer.”

Oregon continues to be the only state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. In January of 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Attorney General could not enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against physicians prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by the Oregon law. Past efforts to legalize assisted suicide in Washington, California, Vermont and Michigan have failed. New Yorkers must remain vigilant to safeguard our laws against assisted suicide and to promote respect for all human lives.