May 23, 2025, 5:44 PM ET

New York assisted suicide bill could open door to drug-induced ‘distressing deaths’

New York state lawmakers are considering “Medical Aid in Dying” legislation that would legalize assisted suicide in the state, allowing adults diagnosed as “terminally ill” with six months or less to live to be prescribed lethal drugs. However, the lack of information in the bill on exactly which drugs would be used to kill patients is causing additional controversy.

The New York legislation has passed the state Assembly, but also must pass the state Senate before it can go to the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, who has not taken a public position on the bill.

The bill has inspired impassioned debate. Assemblywoman Karine Reyes argues that preventing certain persons from committing assisted suicide is “inhumane,” while Max Rodriguez, manager of government affairs for the Center for Disability Rights, argues that the bill “places a bullseye on the backs of terminally ill New Yorkers and disabled New Yorkers.”

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

In New York, assisted suicide legislation is being debated, with opponents concerned about the targeting of the disabled and the terminally ill.

Of concern to some politicians is the fact that no specific drugs for assisted suicide are mentioned in the bill.

Many patients prescribed well-known drugs for assisted suicide experienced prolonged and distressing deaths.

Many drugs used for assisted suicide fail to go through a stringent approval process.

THE CONTEXT:

According to the Times Union, “The legislation contains nothing about which substances, exactly, New York would choose to legalize for the purpose of ending a person’s life. Instead, lawmakers have appeared to relinquish control of determining what life-ending mixtures of medications would be used to the state Department of Health, individual health care providers[,] and participating pharmacies.”

The news outlet reported that the “most widely referenced” information available to New York lawmakers on assisted suicide drugs comes from an annual report by the Oregon Health Authority on its “Death with Dignity” assisted suicide scheme. Though assisted suicide has been legal in Oregon since 1999, the drugs utilized for it have changed repeatedly.

It began with barbiturates in high doses, such as pentobarbital and secobarbital, which are sedatives. But in 2021, the European Union banned the export of pentobarbital to the U.S. because it is also used in the U.S. for death penalty executions. This caused the cost of pentobarbital to rise dramatically, and secobarbital also became too expensive to use because manufacturers increased the prices.

Since 2013, Oregon has been using different drug combinations that are meant to induce drowsiness and other symptoms to cause death — most commonly diazepam, which causes sedation; digoxin, which slows or stops the heart and is used in certain methods of abortion; morphine, an opioid; phenobarbital, and amitriptyline, an antidepressant.

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WHY IT MATTERS:

A 2022 study published in the British Medical Bulletin found that many patients prescribed these drugs for assisted suicide were at risk of a “distressing death.” Researchers called for further insight into how assisted suicides are carried out and pushed for adequate informed consent for patients.

“Drugs used for medical purposes are required to undergo a stringent approval process in order to assess efficacy and safety,” researchers concluded. “But the drugs being used for ‘assisted dying’ have not undergone such process; the safety and effectiveness of previous and current combinations of lethal drugs is largely unknown.”

It remains unclear how long it will take for the patients to die, and if they suffer during this process when they are unable to communicate. As previously reported by Live Action News, the process may not be peaceful as advertised because the person can drown to death while paralyzed. Sodium thiopental — also called thiopental, Sodium Pentothal, thiopentone, or Trapanal — is used in assisted death in the Netherlands and Belgium. It’s also used in death penalty executions.

A study in the medical journal Anaesthesia found that long, painful deaths from assisted suicide and euthanasia are alarmingly common; a third of patients took 30 hours to die, while four percent took seven days to die. Additionally, experiments with assisted suicide and euthanasia revealed there is more suffering — with one drug cocktail allegedly “burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain.”

“That medication is as dangerous as a loaded gun but precautions for its safekeeping are absent from this legislation,” said Assemblywoman Mary Beth Walsh, a Saratoga County Republican.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Lawmakers in New York are questioning which “drug cocktail” New York doctors would choose if the bill is enacted. They are worried about patients suffering as well as the possibility that the drugs could be used for other nefarious purposes.

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