Doctor-Assisted Death Is Legal in 10 States. Could New York Be No. 11?

The sounds of protest came forcefully from the Assembly chamber gallery, the chants echoing the words emblazoned on handmade banners that were held aloft: “Stop the suffering, pass the bill!”

But as New York State troopers began to remove some of the protesters — some holding canes, others slowed by the effects of cancer treatment — it was clear that this demonstration held personal and immediate resonance to those participating.

The protest was the latest in an increasingly desperate series of demonstrations aimed at persuading state legislators to pass a bill that would legalize so-called medical aid in dying, allowing terminally ill people access to life-ending medication for the first time in the state.

New York is one of 19 states where lawmakers are considering bills that would legalize medical aid in dying, a practice that is legal in 10 states and Washington, D.C.

The bill in New York would allow mentally competent, terminally ill adults with no more than six months to live to request prescriptions from their doctors for life-ending medication. The patients would have to be able to ingest the medication on their own, and only the person seeking to die could request the prescription.

“I’m not someone who enjoys conflict or who has much experience in civil disobedience,” said Jules Netherland, a protester who was detained in the Capitol. “But I really believed this was the only way to get people’s attention.”

Roughly a decade has passed since the first medical aid in dying bill was introduced in Albany, and it has yet to reach the floor for a vote. But the proposal has gained momentum this year, because of endorsements from groups like the Medical Society of the State of New York, a trade group of roughly 20,000 doctors, and the efforts of activists like Ms. Netherland, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer last year.

Opponents worry that some patients might choose to end their lives based on an inaccurate prognosis or after being pressured to do so. And while the current bill is restricted to terminally ill people, they worry that lawmakers could expand eligibility for medical aid in dying after any initial legislation is passed.

“Even if there is just one case of abuse or coercion, or even if there is just one mistake, that is a dead person,” said Colleen Barry, a nurse and board member of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA.

With roughly a week left in the 2024 legislative session, the bill faces an uphill climb in the Legislature, which Democrats control, especially without the official support of Gov. Kathy Hochul or the leaders of the Assembly and Senate.

Still, Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, the chairwoman of the body’s Health Committee, said that it had gradually garnered support since she first sponsored it in 2016.

“It’s an emotional vote,” not unlike those on abortion or marriage equality, said Ms. Paulin, who represents parts of Westchester County and is motivated by the memory of her sister, who could not get such aid when she was dying of ovarian cancer. “A lot of my colleagues have come to me with stories that drove them to change their minds. It’s about life, and it’s about choice. More members are feeling that and living that and understanding that.”

But it is precisely the emotional gravity of the issue that has some in leadership hesitating, according to numerous lawmakers.

“I just think that, as a culture, in terms of the country, there has not been a lot of conversation about dying,” the State Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, said of the proposal earlier this year, adding that she was not opposed to having that conversation.

Opponents, including the Center for Disability Rights and the New York State Catholic Conference, warn that even this narrow application of aid in dying will invariably lead to broader use. They point to places, mostly outside the United States, where the practice is available not only to patients struggling with terminal physical illnesses, but also to those with mental illnesses as well.

The vast majority of people who have availed themselves of such laws in the United States were facing terminal physical illnesses — most commonly cancer. But rare exceptions, like a 36-year-old Colorado woman who was prescribed life-ending medication after a diagnosis of “terminal anorexia nervosa,” have sparked controversy and raised questions about suffering, autonomy and the role and responsibilities of physicians.

The American Medical Association is formally opposed to physician-assisted suicide, which it describes as “​​fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.” For many years, the Medical Society of the State of New York agreed.

But recent conversations around the legislation — which not only restricts the practice to terminally ill people but also allows individual providers to opt out based on their own convictions — caused the group to reverse course and endorse the measure.

Supporters of the practice say that legalizing medical aid in dying would help untold numbers of people avoid suffering and die peacefully. They point to polls like one commissioned earlier this year by YouGov that found 72 percent of New Yorkers supported “death with dignity.”

Between 1994, when Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice, and 2020, 8,451 people received prescriptions under medical aid in dying laws. Of those, 5,329 took the life-ending medication, according to a 2022 study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Barbara Thomas, 87, fought tears as she tried to imagine a reality where that would have been an option for her husband, Bob Thomas, who died 15 months after he was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme — a type of terminal brain cancer — in the fall of 2010.

“I think it would have been much more loving. We could have all gathered,” she said, pausing to blink back tears. “He would have, I’m sure, preferred to be able to have everyone around so he could speak to them all, give them his wishes for their lives and hear them say what they liked about him.”

Instead, Mr. Thomas, a proud outdoorsman who enjoyed fly fishing, hunting, camping and hiking, spent most of his final months in his bed at home in West Milton, N.Y., tired and frail, Ms. Thomas said.

“Sometimes we would just lay in the bed and cry about what an impossible situation we were in,” she recalled.

Twice, Mr. Thomas asked his wife to bring him his gun and help him kill himself, Ms. Thomas said. She never did it, but it pained her to see how miserable he was and to know there was nothing she could do to alleviate his suffering.

“He was the person I had lived with longer than any other person — longer than my parents, longer than any of my children,” Ms. Thomas said, adding that they had been married for 55 years. “We were still in love.”

To her, allowing people like her husband to choose when and how they die is “the compassionate, loving thing to do.”