December 17, 2025: Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today that she would sign The Medical Aid in Dying Act, which will allow terminally ill New Yorkers to receive medical assistance to end their lives in specific situations.
The law will apply to adults who have incurable, irreversible illnesses and six months or less to live. Each patient will need the sign-off of three doctors. One of the doctors will be empowered to write a prescription for life-ending medication, which the patient must self-administer.
At a news conference about the legislation this afternoon, the Governor said she intends to sign the bill after the State Legislature returns for session in January and formally adopts a raft of changes she wants made to the original bill passed earlier this year
Governor Hochul, who is Catholic, said it was one of the most difficult decisions she had faced as governor. In an essay published this morning in the Albany Times Union, she said that she had listened to people suffering through the agony of a slow death, and that their painful experiences mirrored her own observations of a beloved family member.
The governor, a Democrat, said that she had struggled with Catholic teaching on the measure. “There’s a lot of religious conflict in me, the way I was raised,” she said on Wednesday. “But I realized it’s not about me, it’s about 20 million New Yorkers.”
If a suffering New Yorker made the difficult choice to die, she asked, “Who am I to stand in their way?”