Cardinal Dolan: New York suicide bill a ‘terrible idea,’ turns doctors into killers

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 6, 2025 / 15:41 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Timothy Dolan this week called New York legislation aiming to legalize medical assisted suicide “a disaster waiting to happen” after the state Assembly advanced the measure last week.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Dolan — the archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York — said: “For people of faith who believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, the very idea of having a doctor give you a prescription to end your life prematurely is contrary to everything we cherish.”

“But one need not be religious to see that assisted suicide is a terrible idea. It is a classic Pandora’s box; once opened, its consequences cannot be contained.”

The New York State Assembly passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act in New York on April 29 in an 81–67 vote. If passed into law, the legislation will allow terminally ill adults to request medication to end their own lives.

Dolan on Tuesday reflected on the last weeks of Pope Francis’ life and how he was “not afraid to let us watch him die, much like his beloved predecessor, Pope St. John Paul II.” 

“Both men knew that our worth is based on who we are as children of God, not on what we can do,” the archbishop wrote.

Dolan highlighted that the New York bill lacks safety guidelines, arguing that the medication can be prescribed by any kind of doctor and the meeting to request the medication is not required to be held in person. 

Patients also do not have to be asked if they have ever contemplated suicide or been treated for any mental health conditions.

“How is this compassion?” Dolan said on Tuesday, arguing that the measure forces doctors “to lie on death certificates by claiming the cause of death was the person’s underlying illness and not what actually killed him or her — the lethal combination of drugs.”

He explained the bill follows successful work by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to bring suicide rates in New York down. Hochul spearheaded initiatives to help schools, hospitals, first responders, and veterans and a hotline during a “mental health crisis.”

Dolan said he commended her “highly successful suicide prevention efforts.” 

“But,” he continued, “a new law that sanctions suicide while the state simultaneously pursues a policy of suicide prevention amounts to cutting holes into one side of a boat while bailing water from the other.”

Dolan pointed to the Catholic Church’s “long and proud history in health care.”

“We opened America’s first hospitals. We’ve cared for the casualties of war, measles, homelessness, illness, violence, AIDS, and all diseases and ailments known to man. We’ve also cared for our fellow humans’ emotional, psychological, and spiritual ailments.”

“State-sanctioned suicide turns everything society knows and believes about medicine on its head,” Dolan said. “Doctors go from healers to killers.”

Meanwhile, “what is proposed as compassion for the suffering terminally ill” becomes “a duty, as the elderly, the disabled, and the sick feel pressured to end their lives and stop being an inconvenience to others.”

“All stages of life provide lessons — to ourselves and others — but perhaps none more so than life’s end, as Pope Francis so eloquently taught,” the cardinal said.

Dolan noted that Pope Francis called assisted suicide the “discarding of the patient” and “false compassion.” 

“New York and all our states can do better than this,” Dolan said. 

“Let us instead focus our formidable efforts on strengthening care for people at the end of life. They are finishing the race. Let them go with their hands held high, the way God and nature intended,” the prelate said.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263891/cardinal-dolan-new-york-suicide-bill-a-terrible-idea-turns-doctors-into-killers