A New York state senator is proposing a new law allowing doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill adults who express the wish to die.
Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, said he drew his inspiration from the high-profile case of Brittany Maynard, a young woman with a deadly brain tumor who moved to Oregon to commit suicide and spent her last days aggressively promoting so-called “right to die” laws.
“This bill will give capable adults who have been given a terminal medical prognosis a measure of control over their end-of-life care options,” wrote Hoylman in a letter seeking cosponsors for the measure.
But Catholics and Evangelicals alike vowed to fight the measure. “We believe the so-called death with dignity movement is predicated on the false notion that there is something undignified about a natural death,” Dennis Poust of the New York Catholic Conference told the New York Daily News. “We don’t buy that.”
Rev. Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation, also promised to oppose the bill.