Barbara Thomas stood in the middle of a busy underground hallway entering the New York State Capitol last month, one of roughly a dozen older activists in yellow T-shirts who handed out coaster-sized stickers of yellow roses to lawmakers and lobbyists whizzing by.
More than a decade ago, her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. Thomas said he was bed-ridden and couldn’t so much as turn over on his own. After a 15-month struggle, he died.
“He really wanted me to shoot him,” said Thomas, 77, who lives north of Albany. “I didn’t feel like I could do that.”
Now, Thomas and some fellow civic-minded activists are fighting for the right to die.
For the last nine years, Thomas has been part of a group of mostly older adults who have made regular trips to the Capitol to push a bill known as the Medical Aid in Dying Act. It would allow terminally ill patients over the age of 18 to seek doctor approval to take prescribed medication to end their life.
Each year, advocates for the measure cross their fingers, hoping the bill will at last get a vote in the state Legislature. Each year, they’ve been disappointed. Still, they persist.
“I think unquestionably we are gaining momentum,” said David Pratt, a 79-year-old doctor who used to work in public health.
In some ways, that’s true.
In January, the state Bar Association, which represents lawyers, backed the measure for the first time. The group said the bill “offers both dignity and compassion” for those who have few months left to live.
In April, the Medical Society of the State of New York, the state’s largest physician organization, followed suit, saying doctors should get to decide if they want to participate “in the processes and procedures as outlined in any proposed medical aid in dying legislation.”
While the legislation has more momentum these days, in other ways it’s still far from reality. It’s never received so much as a committee vote, and the three most important figures in Albany — Gov. Kathy Hochul and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly — have yet to take a public position on it.
Corinne Carey, senior campaign director for Compassion & Choices, a group lobbying for the New York bill and similar legislation around the country, said the long-sought endorsements from the lawyer and doctor groups raise a simple question for Albany policymakers: “What’s left?”
“Lawmakers are looking at the polls and voters are solidly behind this proposal,” she said. “Who else do they need to hear from?”
Religious organizations comprise another group whom lawmakers are hearing from about the proposal — most notably the Catholic Church, which opposes it.
The state Catholic Conference, a lobbying group representing Cardinal Timothy Dolan and other bishops across New York, is making defeating the bill its No. 1 priority for the remainder of the 2024 legislative session that runs through early June, according to Dennis Poust, the organization’s executive director.
“For Catholics, our goal is not this life, it’s the afterlife, right?” Poust said. “The goal isn’t to keep people alive at all costs. People are going to die. The question is: Should doctors be poisoning patients to end their lives prematurely, or should they be helping them in their journey toward death?”
A segment of the disability rights movement also opposes the measure, arguing it could be used to pressure people into ending their life, particularly if they have a disability.
Blaise Bryant, communications specialist for the New York Association on Independent Living, said the independent living movement is “all about people making choices.”
“And if someone chooses to end their life, that’s unfortunately their choice,” he said as his seeing-eye dog, Victor, dutifully sat nearby. “But the thing that we’re really concerned about here is being pressured into it by doctors or other family members who just view the person as a burden.”
Proponents of the legislation say there’s no evidence suggesting that patients are being pressured in the 10 states, along with Washington, D.C., where physician-assisted death is now legal. That includes New Jersey, which legalized the practice five years ago.
They also say the New York bill includes provisions to protect patients from coercion. Under the current legislation, two doctors would have to confirm that anyone seeking life-ending medication — most commonly a compound of drugs in powder form, dissolved into water — has an irreversible, incurable illness or condition with a prognosis of six months or less to live.
If either of the doctors has concerns about a patient’s capability or mental acuity to make their own decisions, they would be required to refer the patient to a mental health professional for further evaluation. The patient would then have to make a written request for the lethal medication and have it signed by two adult witnesses who aren’t related to them, aren’t in line for an inheritance and don’t work for a nursing home or health care facility where the patient is receiving care.
“We’ve taken a lot of care to ensure that the proper safeguards are in place,” said state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsors the bill.
But in the Catholic Church’s view, the measure represents a “threat to human dignity,” no matter how many protections are in place.
“People are subject to all sorts of coercion and there are not enough safeguards and there never will be to avoid that,” Poust said. “It’s just fundamentally bad law, especially in an age where we really can control pain and suffering through palliative care.”
At a rally at the Capitol last month, state Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Scarsdale Democrat who has sponsored the bill since it was first introduced in 2015, said it has more cosponsors than ever before. But she acknowledged the proposal still faces resistance from some of her colleagues.
The veteran lawmaker, who often speaks about her late sister’s painful battle with ovarian cancer, had a message for the bill’s opponents. “I’m not leaving,” Paulin said. “If they want me to retire, I’m not leaving until this bill is done.”