Here’s How Medical Aid in Dying Gives Us More Control Over Our Bodies

Almost all of us will experience the loss of a loved one, often watching with a feeling of helplessness as their health declines toward the inevitable. During this time, we want to respect our loved one’s autonomy and minimize their suffering during their final days.

Terminally ill people should have the right to some degree of control over the circumstances of their deaths, just as they have the right to refuse life-prolonging treatments. In recognition of this core civil liberty, twelve states and the District of Columbia have passed medical aid in dying laws. These laws, through a tightly-regulated process, allow mentally competent patients with little time left to access, and, if they choose, to self-administer medication that will hasten their deaths.

New Yorkers, too, will soon have this right. On February 6, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the medical aid in dying bill passed by the legislature in June, 2025, which will take effect in August. In an op-ed describing how she decided to sign the bill, Hochul spoke of watching her own mother die of ALS: “I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and feeling powerless to stop it.”

Hochul, who has positioned herself as a champion of reproductive rights, also said she based her decision on the concept of bodily autonomy. “In the true spirit of this country, government has a responsibility to protect, not interfere, with an individual’s deeply personal decisions,” she wrote.

New York has long been a beacon of an individual’s right to make decisions about their medical care, from legalizing abortion in 1970 to protecting gender-affirming care from today’s hostile federal government. Our state is also where the seeds of informed consent in medicine were planted, with Justice Benjamin Cardozo writing in a 1914 decision, “every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”

Medical aid in dying is a natural outgrowth of this concept, in which patients have a right to know the potential risks and benefits of any medical treatment and to accept or decline it.

Addressing the concerns of disabled people and their advocates

The campaign for this bill lasted many years and was frequently stalled by opponents including religious groups and advocates for people with disabilities.

When it comes to medical aid in dying, the concerns of disability rights activists – including the NYCLU – are understandable. People frequently project their own fears onto people with disabilities with cruel comments about some lives not being “worth living” or how they would rather die than live with certain kinds of disability. Currently able-bodied people are often terrified at the idea of needing assistance with daily activities like eating, dressing and toileting, yet people with disabilities receive this kind of support every day while living full lives of worth and dignity.

One concern of disability rights advocates is that people will make the decision to end their lives based on these negative perceptions of what it means to live with a disability. Family members, friends, and unfortunately even clinicians often heighten these fears.

Another worry is that normalizing aid in dying will exacerbate already prevalent discrimination against people with disabilities.

But the right to autonomy also protects an individual’s decision not to end life. We want to ensure that there are legal protections for the right to live, regardless of disability, illness or age. To protect people with disabilities and the elderly, New York’s law specifies that “No person shall qualify for medical aid in dying under this article solely because of age or disability.”

The rights of people with disabilities and the rights of people who are dying are not mutually exclusive. We must provide New Yorkers with disabilities the support they deserve to live their lives fully, and grant all New Yorkers with little time left the right to decide when to die. Both scenarios, at their core, are a matter of individual autonomy. Every New Yorker should determine for themselves what a life with dignity, or a death with dignity, looks like for them.

Other concerns – and guardrails that protect against them

There is also the worry that terminally ill people will be pressured or coerced into hastening their deaths. Family members may have concerns about finances or the burden of caregiving. And patients may think that medical aid in dying is the only alternative to a protracted, painful death if they don’t know about or have access to other options like palliative and hospice care. Finally, it can be difficult for a person to make such an enormous decision while coping with the physical and emotional anguish of a terminal diagnosis.

For all these reasons, New York’s medical aid in dying bill – which is extremely similar to legislation passed in other states – includes many safeguards to protect patients from pressure or coercion. To access medical aid in dying, a person must have a terminal diagnosis with six months or less to live, be mentally competent to make the decision, and self-ingest the medication. As in other states, the law requires data collection about who makes use of the option so that any troubling patterns can be identified and addressed.

Governor Hochul made her signature contingent on amendments that added additional requirements, including an audio or video recording of the patient’s request for medication, a five-day waiting period between the writing and filling of the prescription, a mental health assessment by a psychiatrist or psychologist, a prohibition on anyone who could benefit financially from the death serving as a witness to the request or an interpreter, and limiting access to New York residents.

Decades of data do not bear out people’s frequent concerns about medical aid in dying

Data from Oregon, which implemented its Death with Dignity Act in 1997, strongly indicate that neither people with terminal illnesses, people with disabilities, nor the elderly are being coerced into ending their lives.

In 2024, Death with Dignity Act deaths comprised less than one percent of deaths in Oregon. And in the twenty-seven years of data collected since the law went into effect, the total number of Oregonians who filled prescriptions under the law is 4,881, and of those only 66 percent (3,243) died from taking the medications. This suggests that in many cases, the main impact of the medication was the comfort of having it on hand and knowing that using it was an option.

A victory for all New Yorkers

We do not support all of Governor Hochul’s amendments to the bill that passed the Legislature in June. For example, no other states require a video or audio recording of the patient’s request. This amendment burdens a person who may be suffering greatly. Moreover, mandatory psychiatric evaluation undermines patient autonomy and introduces potentially harmful delays given the short supply of psychiatric services in New York. A study recently completed in Hawaii – at the time the only jurisdiction requiring mandatory psychological evaluation of all Hawaiians seeking medical aid in dying – found such evaluation entirely unnecessary.

But despite these unneeded amendments, we still celebrate the passage of this bill after a decade of advocacy. State law protects our bodily autonomy and allows individuals to make choices regarding their care, such as contraception, abortion, gender affirming care, informed consent, and the right to refuse treatment. Medical aid in dying belongs among these individual rights.

Like other civil rights, the benefits of legal medical aid in dying laws extend well beyond those who benefit directly. Whether they request the medication and do not use it, or never request it at all, countless patients have found comfort in having this right. In addition, clinicians in California reported that just six months after the law went into effect it has had a positive impact on their practice. Discussing end-of-life care and a patient’s feelings about death helps clinicians better care for their patients, whether that means improving control of their pain or helping to get their affairs in order.

Having the right to make this choice will bring solace to the dying and their caregivers. Opening up conversations about death will also give medical providers and family members the chance to proactively discuss a person’s end-of-life wishes well before death is imminent.

For all of these reasons, the legalization of medical aid in dying will not only benefit the small number of people who will use it, but the rest of us as well.