The bill’s fate in the Senate is now one of Albany’s top post-budget issues.
By Bill Mahoney | 04/29/2025 05:30 PM EDT
ALBANY, New York — The Assembly approved a long-lingering measure Tuesday to let doctors prescribe euthanizing medicine to people with terminal illnesses.
The vote, which broke down largely along party lines, made the “Medical Aid in Dying” measure a contender for the most prominent post-budget policy issue in Albany. There’s strong support for it in the Senate, but it’s not guaranteed to pass that chamber.
If it passes into law, New York would become the 11th state to legalize some form of assisted suicide.
The debate Tuesday was an emotional one, with multiple members telling of long-suffering loved ones forced to endure while unable to control their final days. Assembly sponsor Amy Paulin said her sister’s ovarian cancer relapsed shortly after she introduced the bill in 2015.
“She asked two things,” Paulin said before the vote. “One, that I would be there when she died. And she shouted out every five minutes, ‘When am I going to die already? The pain is so severe’ … What a terrible memory to have — the lasting memory I have of my sister is shouting in pain.”
The Catholic Church and other religious groups have strongly opposed the measure. Republicans sided with them, arguing that legalizing prescriptions for suicide is a slippery slope.
“No one wants to see anyone they love endure unimaginable pain, unimaginable suffering,” Assemblymember Josh Jensen said. “However, is the government sanctioning the death of people in that pain, in that suffering, correct?”
The final vote was 81-67 with no Republicans supporting the bill. A sizable majority of Democrats did, but some religious members and others who spoke about the lack of equitable access to healthcare joined the opposition.
The vote was a rare instance in modern Albany in which the Assembly has been at the forefront of major legislation. While that chamber drove Democratic policy in New York for generations, they’ve regularly followed the Senate in high-profile measures since Democrats won the majority there in 2019, largely due to structural realities in the upper house that make it easier to pass bills quickly.
With six-and-a-half weeks remaining on this session’s calendar, the question now becomes whether the Senate will follow suit.
There are 26 sponsors in that chamber. Advocates say at least another four senators have told them they’ll back the bill if it came up for a vote, meaning there are at least 30 supporters in a legislative body where 32 members are needed to pass legislation. There are four or five “fence-sitters,” and the bill will likely pass if a couple of them decide to back it.
“I hope, as soon as we’re done with the budget, to request a conference discussion on this incredibly important issue,” Senate sponsor Brad Hoylman-Sigal said.
“We have the momentum,” he said. “There’s nothing more indicative of a bill passing both houses than if it passes one house, as it’s going to do today. This is an enormous boost.”
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said there’s been “growth in the number of people that are looking at this in a serious way” and promised to bring it to the floor if there are enough votes.
Should the Senate pass it, attention will turn to Gov. Kathy Hochul. “We’ve heard that she’s supportive, but I haven’t gotten a personal call,” Paulin said of the governor.
The bill has existed in its current iteration since 2016 and was proposed in a couple of different forms before that. Supporters have made it one of the most visible stalled issues in Albany for several years.
Barb Thomas is one of several advocates who’s spent every Tuesday since last year participating in a vigil in the tunnel connecting the Capitol to the Legislative Office Building. Accompanied by poster boards highlighting the suffering of deceased New Yorkers, they’ve forced members who might not want to think about legislating death to pay attention.
“I’m in it with that intensity because my husband had an incurable brain cancer and wanted me to shoot him,” Thomas said. “I didn’t. But I feel guilty that I didn’t, because it was what he wanted — he wanted to escape. I think this is an option that people should have.”
Katelyn Cordero contributed to this report.