New York Archbishop Hicks Calls Assisted Suicide an ‘Assault’ On Human Life
Archbishop Ronald Hicks warns that the New York assisted‑suicide law, effective Aug. 5, could become an assault on human life and a step toward a throwaway mentality. The law allows terminally ill patients with six months or less to request life‑ending drugs, requiring two verbal requests 48 hours apart, a written request with two witnesses, a final attestation 48 hours before use, a five‑day pharmacy waiting period, and self‑administration. Hicks fears the legislation may pressure vulnerable groups—people with disabilities, the elderly, and those in underserved communities—to end their lives, turning “choice” into an expectation. Disability advocates, such as Jose Hernandez of the New York Association on Independent Living, criticize the law for its negative impact on disabled people and for treating them as a burden.
3 months ago
New York’s newly enacted assisted‑suicide law, set to take effect on August 5, 2026, has sparked sharp criticism from Archbishop Ronald Hicks and a range of disability‑rights and pro‑life advocates, who warn that the legislation threatens the dignity of vulnerable populations and lacks adequate safeguards. 1 2 3
The law, passed on February 6, 2026, allows terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to request life‑ending medication.
Proposed rules released by the New York State Department of Health require:
Patients would self‑administer the drugs, and death certificates would list the underlying disease as the cause of death. 1 2 3
Archbishop Hicks described the legislation as an “assault on human life” and warned of a “throwaway mentality.”
He argued that what begins as a “choice” could become an expectation for the elderly, disabled, and underserved to end their lives.
Hicks invoked Pope Francis’s natural death in 2025 as a model of dignity and urged vigilance against a “slippery slope” toward external pressure from government or insurers. 1 2 3
Jose Hernandez, a quadriplegic activist with the New York Association on Independent Living, said society already treats people with disabilities as a “burden.”
He expressed fear that insurers might favor assisted suicide as a cheaper option and recalled his mother’s prolonged survival after a terminal‑cancer diagnosis, underscoring the uncertainty of prognoses.
Hernandez urged patients to consider hospice, palliative care, or induced comas instead of suicide. 1 2 3
Jamie Towey of Aging With Dignity called assisted suicide “the wrong answer to real problems” and warned that the original bill, before amendments, lacked waiting periods and residency requirements.
He highlighted the organization’s “Five Wishes” program and emphasized solutions such as advance‑care planning, quality pain management, and personal accompaniment. 1 2 3
Jessica Rodgers of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund criticized the law for protecting prescribers rather than patients, noting the absence of post‑dispensing oversight or follow‑up, which she said could harm vulnerable individuals. 1 2 3
Both Hicks and the cited advocates warned that the law could open the door to broader expectations for self‑termination among groups not covered by the current eligibility criteria.
They cautioned that external forces—government agencies, insurers, or advocacy lobbies—might eventually dictate end‑of‑life decisions, undermining the protection owed to every human life. 1 2 3*
Does Catholic teaching protect vulnerable persons against assisted suicide?
Yes. Catholic teaching protects vulnerable persons against assisted suicide by affirming the inviolable dignity of every human life (including the sick, elderly, and disabled), rejecting legal or medical practices that would directly end life, and insisting that the proper response to suffering is palliative care and accompaniment, not “choice” that results in killing.
Catholic moral teaching grounds protection of vulnerable people in the conviction that life is a gift from God and that no person (or society or medical system) may treat it as a commodity whose end can be “administered.” Bishop Matano’s statement explicitly connects assisted suicide laws with a shift in society: under the guise of autonomy, it places doctors under “the sole intention of terminating human life,” burdening the vocation “dedicated to the service of life.”
Pope Francis frames the public responsibility similarly: civil society and states should respond to vulnerability with palliative care and authentic solidarity, “rather than encouraging deceptive forms of compassion such as euthanasia.”
The Catechism teaches that suicide is “seriously contrary to justice, hope, and charity” and is “forbidden by the fifth commandment.”
It also specifies that voluntary cooperation in suicide is contrary to the moral law: “Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.”
This matters for your question about “protection,” because assisted suicide is not only about the suffering person’s desire—it necessarily involves another’s action (typically a physician) that cooperates in ending life.
The Catechism further explains the social harm: suicide “likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity” with family and society.
So the protection the Church defends is not merely private; it is also structural and communal—how law and medicine treat the vulnerable.
Catholic teaching does not deny the reality of imminent death or the seriousness of suffering. Instead, it distinguishes between:
The Catechism states that even if death is thought imminent, “the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted,” and that use of painkillers to alleviate suffering—even at the risk of shortening days—can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as an end or a means, but “foreseen and tolerated as inevitable.” It also calls palliative care “a special form of disinterested charity” that should be encouraged.
Pope Francis emphasizes the same pastoral priority: the Church “has always shown particular concern for the dying, offering them accompaniment and care,” while “rejecting the ethically unacceptable practices of euthanasia or assisted suicide.”
Catholic teaching directly links assisted suicide/euthanasia with risks for vulnerable persons.
In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis notes that euthanasia and assisted suicide are “serious threats to families worldwide,” and that elderly people can be “unfairly exploited simply for economic advantage.” The text adds that the Church “feels the need to assist families who take care of their elderly and infirm members” while firmly opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Pope Francis also warns about a broader pattern of abandonment: older and dependent people can be treated as discardable when “medicines are expensive” and the hidden logic becomes “shortening the lives of the elderly,” denying hope.
In short, Catholic teaching’s “protection” is meant to counter the pressure that vulnerable people can experience—socially, economically, and psychologically—to choose death because life feels like a burden.
A common concern is whether Catholic teaching “judges” people who are suicidal or requests help to die. The Catechism explicitly says: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives,” and that God can provide opportunities for repentance; it also states that the Church prays for such persons.
So Catholic teaching does not treat suffering or suicidal crises as merely moral “fault”; it calls for prayer and hope, while still holding fast to the objective moral law against suicide and against voluntary cooperation in it.
Catholic teaching protects vulnerable persons against assisted suicide by (1) affirming the sacredness and dignity of life, (2) rejecting assisted suicide/euthanasia as ethically unacceptable because it involves cooperation in killing and violates charity and solidarity, and (3) requiring that suffering at the end of life be met with palliative care, ordinary care, and accompaniment, not with legal or medical mechanisms that make death an administered “solution.”