On the Brink of Suicide: New York and Illinois

Governments are essentially standing on the bridge, and some of us are trying our best to talk them down from it.

Months ago, Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote in the Wall Street Journal about a scene he witnessed on the George Washington Bridge here in New York City:

Crossing the George Washington Bridge during rush hour, I came to a complete stop just before midspan. Horns blared, and people started getting out of their cars. Word started to spread—there was a man on the side of the bridge, threatening to jump. Everyone’s mood changed in an instant. Instead of being impatient, angry, in a rush, we prayed for that man and the rescue workers trying to coax him back to safety. We all rallied on behalf of a troubled man intent on suicide.

That’s how it is when someone is thinking of taking his own life…. Which is why I am more than puzzled, I am stunned, when I read that New York lawmakers are on the verge of legalizing suicide—not by leaping from a bridge but via a poison cocktail easily provided by physicians and pharmacists. I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief at the disparity in official responses. Our government will marshal all its resources to save the life of one hopeless and despondent man. Yet it may conclude that some lives aren’t worth living—perhaps due to a serious illness or disability—and we will hand those despondent women and men a proverbial loaded gun and tell them to have at it.

And yet here we are in New York, closer than ever to legal assisted suicide. Governor Kathy Hochul is likely to sign legislation into law before the year ends.

Those of us who oppose it haven’t given up. Just last week there were prayer vigils around the state, including outside the governor’s Manhattan office, hoping she acts to protect vulnerable human lives.

Bill McGurn wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week:

It will say a lot about who the governor is and what kind of legacy she wishes to leave. Ms. Hochul is a proud graduate of Catholic University Law School in the nation’s capital and, like many of her fellow Catholic Democrats, firmly pro-choice on abortion. Assisted suicide, by contrast, seems to make her skittish.

. . . Vetoing the suicide bill would give Ms. Hochul an opportunity to burnish her Catholic credentials. Like many pro-choice Catholics, she gets around her rift with the church with a rhetorical sleight-of-hand. The idea is to fudge the clear line in Catholic teaching against abortion and suicide by equating legalization with, say, a higher minimum wage or more spending for the poor.

Theologically it’s a hash, but politically it can be effective. Mario Cuomo used it when he was governor to advance his “personally opposed but” approach to abortion. No doubt that’s why Ms. Hochul appeared at the Catholic Charities’ annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, where she proudly declared herself a “social-justice Catholic.”

However she can justify doing the right thing, please, God, give her the will.

In Illinois, rumor has it that Governor JB Pritzker may sign assisted-suicide legislation as soon as Friday. That hasn’t stopped disability groups and coroners from trying to change his mind. (And there is a vigil planned for tonight in opposition to legalizing medical murder.)

In Canada, Andrew Lawton, a Conservative Party member of the House of Commons, talks about the seven weeks he spent on life support 15 years ago after he attempted suicide — and nearly succeeded. It’s a moving speech, overflowing with his own and other testimonies of gratitude for life. Soon, anyone with mental illness will be eligible for “Medical Aid in Dying” there. He’d be dead — he even had his suicide on his calendar — if such a law had then been in effect. He wants to protect others from being robbed of a second chance.

As Lawton and Dolan and so many point out, we try to prevent suicide, except when we don’t. Except when we want doctors to kill. It makes no sense. Unless we have become civilizationally suicidal.