ONE SIGNATURE AWAY: State-Sanctioned Suicide — and Kids Will Pay the Price

By Coalition to Protect Kids NY

“A state that normalizes suicide for the sick will eventually normalize it for the depressed, the disabled, and the young. We protect children by rejecting any policy that teaches New Yorkers that some lives aren’t worth living.”

New York is standing at the edge of a moral cliff, and Governor Kathy Hochul holds the final decision.

After years of debate, both chambers of the Legislature have passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act, S138 and A136. The Assembly approved A136 on April 29. The Senate passed S138, 35–27, on June 9. The bill was formally transmitted to the Governor and is now sitting on her desk.

Sign the petition asking her to veto it.

One Signature Away

New York is one signature away from legalizing state-sanctioned suicide. And Governor Hochul has publicly acknowledged that she has not yet decided what she will do.

That kind of hesitation, given the stakes, is not neutrality. It is moral negligence.

Vulnerable lives hang in the balance, and the Governor of New York cannot bring herself to say, clearly and urgently, that we do not kill our suffering citizens.

This Bill Is Not Compassion

This bill is not compassion. It is killing instead of curing.

It reframes suicide as a legitimate medical procedure. It redefines death as treatment. It replaces healing with a lethal prescription, and it marks a profound break from the most basic ethical command of medicine:

“First, do no harm.”

Supporters will insist that this is about dignity, mercy, choice, autonomy, and easing unbearable pain. But behind the branding lies something far darker.

Assisted suicide presumes that broken people are better off dead. It suggests that suffering makes life disposable. It assumes that people who feel hopeless should be offered a lethal solution rather than real care, real support, and real hope.

It assumes miracles do not happen.It assumes recovery is impossible.It assumes suffering has no value, no meaning, no purpose.And it assumes that the best way to relieve pain is to eliminate the person who feels it.

That is not medicine. That is despair weaponized with medical authority.

The Cultural Drift We Can’t Ignore

If we think this will only affect adults—or that New York will never slide toward children—then we have not been paying attention to the last decade of cultural shifts.

Remember when activists insisted that no minors would ever be placed on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones?Remember when we were told no child would ever be socially transitioned behind a parent’s back?Remember when medical organizations swore no minor would ever receive irreversible surgeries?

We were assured those things would never happen—until each one did. And not just in isolated cases. They happened rapidly, aggressively, and with institutional support from the same activist machinery pushing this bill today.

Why would assisted suicide be any different?

We live in a culture telling children:

• that their bodies are wrong,

• that their identities are unstable,

• that their emotions define reality,

• that their pain is permanent, and

• that medical intervention is the first and best solution to distress.

If a child can alter their body, why would lawmakers not eventually argue that they can end it?If emotional suffering qualifies adults for a lethal prescription, why would minors in despair be excluded forever?

This is not exaggeration. It is the logical next step in the same ideological framework. The slope is greased, and anyone who has been watching the last decade knows exactly how this story goes.

The creep always comes.

The Global Record

Yes, New York’s bill claims to limit access to adults only.

But so did Belgium’s.So did the Netherlands’.So did Canada’s.

Every one of those nations began with strict limits. Every one described their laws as cautious. Every one insisted the change would stop with adults.

None of them kept their promises.

Belgium extended euthanasia to minors.The Netherlands expanded access to teens—and then downward.Canada has progressed so far that even some supporters admit the system is out of control.

In each case, the progression was predictable:

1. Demands for “mature minors.”

2. Minors with parental consent.

3. Minors with certain diagnoses.

4. Minors with chronic or emotional suffering.

5. Expanding criteria until, in some jurisdictions, there is no minimum age at all.

Children with disabilities, depression, trauma, or “untreatable suffering” have been euthanized. Some committees are now openly debating whether infants should qualify.

What began as a plea for compassion became a conveyor belt for the vulnerable.

How Expansion Happens

This is not hypothetical. This is not fear-mongering. This is the documented global pattern.

Once the public grows accustomed to the idea that doctor-delivered death is a form of healthcare, the pressure to broaden eligibility becomes relentless. The logic of the ideology demands it.

The pattern is clear:

• Step 1: Legalize MAID for adults only, with strict safeguards.

• Step 2: Normalize it culturally using emotional narratives and sympathetic media stories.

• Step 3: Introduce heartbreaking cases of minors suffering.

• Step 4: Begin the moral pressure campaign asking, “Why are we forcing children to suffer?”

• Step 5: Carve out narrow exceptions for “special cases.”

• Step 6: Expand the exceptions, again and again.

• Step 7: Eventually declare minors with disabilities, depression, identity confusion, trauma, chronic illness, or emotional pain eligible.
  

A Call for Courage

Governor Hochul must take a clear stand. Right now, she appears unwilling to be bold. But she is the final barrier between vulnerable New Yorkers and a system that turns killing into care.

Adults struggling with mental illness, the elderly, the isolated, the disabled, the grieving, and the hopeless—and yes, eventually our children—will all be placed at risk if she signs this bill.

A governor who cannot reject state-sanctioned suicide cannot be trusted to protect children.

Where Are the Faith Leaders?

This raises a pressing question:

Where are the faith leaders?Where are the pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams—the moral guardians our communities look to for clarity?

Silence in this moment is complicity. In moments like this, spiritual leaders have shaped history. They have stood against injustice. They have raised the alarm. They have spoken truth to power.

They are needed now.

If you belong to a church or synagogue, ask your faith leader to personally contact the Governor. Clergy voices carry real influence. Lawmakers take notice when spiritual authorities speak with conviction.

Urge them to stand up.Urge them to refuse silence.Urge them to help protect vulnerable lives.

Choose Hope, Not Death

Euthanasia does not ease suffering; it eliminates the sufferer.

That is not compassion. It is cruelty disguised as care.

If New York chooses this path, we will become a state that tells our most fragile neighbors:

“You are too heavy to carry, too costly to help, too broken to save.”

We refuse that future.

Final Appeal

Governor Hochul: veto S138 and A136.

For the elderly.For the disabled.For the depressed.For our families.For our future.For our children. Sign the petition asking her to veto it.