Update on Medical Aid in Dying Act
The Medical Aid in Dying Act is still pending in both houses of the NYS Legislature, A. 4321-A (Paulin), and S. 6471 (Savino), with over 60 sponsors. We are extremely pleased that each year more legislators are sponsoring the bills. The bills are in the health committees. The chairs of those committees, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and Senator Gustavo Rivera, are staunch, outspoken supporters. However, neither committee has quite the number of votes yet to have the bill approved. EOLCNY has had, and continues to have, meetings with key legislators on both of those committees and other legislators (or their staff), who have not yet taken a position in support of the bill.
Your help is needed too. Please contact your legislators to indicate your strong support for the bill, especially if you have never done so or have not done so in 2022. To see an example script and identify your legislator, please
click here. Additionally, please consider calling several other legislative offices of the Assembly Health Committee. A list of the committee (courtesy of Compassion & Choices) can be
found here. If they are already a sponsor you can thank them for their support and urge them to make the bill a priority. If they are not yet a sponsor, urge them to sponsor the bill and explain why it is important to you. You will probably only be able to speak with a staff person. However, these phone calls do make a difference and can be influential as they are counted on pending legislation.