ALBANY — Advocates of allowing doctor-assisted suicide in New York are optimistic lawmakers will pass a “death with dignity” statute now that five states have passed similar laws.

Colorado voters will decide next month if their state will be the sixth to do so.

A national Gallup poll last year showed 70 percent of respondents believe doctors ought to be allowed to assist in the death of patients suffering from an incurable illness if they or their family request getting a lethal dose of drugs.

But in Albany, the New York Catholic Conference, representing Catholic bishops, and a coalition of advocates for the disabled and elderly have so far succeeded in bottling up bills that would allow physician-aided suicide.

To enact such a measure in New York, lawmakers would have to amend a section of the state criminal code that makes it a criminal offense for doctors to assist in the death of a patient.

“Overwhelmingly, the public is in favor of this, and now it’s just a matter of getting the Legislature to see that is the case,” said Laurie Leonard, director of the End of Life Choices New York, an advocacy group.

While opponents of the legislation say they fear the measure would invite abuse of frail and disabled people, Leonard said no such cases have been documented in Oregon, which became the nation’s first state to allow assisted suicide 19 years ago.

Last year, California became the fifth state to enact the measure. Gov. Jerry Brown, a devout Catholic who was once a Jesuit seminary student, indicated he struggled with the moral issues when he signed the legislation.

“I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain,” Brown said then, adding: “I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”

The coalition of opposition argues the state should instead be doing more to promote improved pain management and hospice options for the dying.

They suggest following in California’s footsteps would invite “suicide contagion” and open the possibility having a hand in the deaths of patients who have been misdiagnosed.

One critic of the measure, Michael Burgess, spokesman for the New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide, acknowledged the advocates gained some traction at the Capitol this year when their bill passed the Assembly Health Committee, though it ended up wedged in the Codes Committee.

A companion measure in the upper chamber, sponsored by Sen. John Bonacic (R-Orange County), never made it to the floor of that House.

“I’m very concerned that if this passes there will be a lot of depressed older people who have lost the will to live who will want this, when, in fact, we have palliative care, and we have hospice,” said Burgess, who was director of the New York State Office of Aging under former Govs. Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.

But the author of the bill that advanced in Albany this year, Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), said the measure has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse.

The legislation requires that before a patient can ask to die, approval is needed from two doctors, as well as a diagnosis that the person has fewer than six months.

Paulin recalled that her own sister suffered tremendously from ovarian cancer before dying while in hospice.

“This is about a personal choice,” she said. “The polling is so strong that people want this personal choice, and that’s why ultimately we will be successful.”

The successful drive for the measure in California became personal on another level: One of the chief advocates there, Brittany Maynard, became the face of the movement after she had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age 29 and moved to Oregon in 2014, where, with the aid of a doctor, she took her own life.

Paulin said terminally ill patients supportive of the New York measure will be stepping up their involvement in the push for the bill in Albany.

“We don’t have one patient; we have many,” the assemblywoman said. “And they are going to be telling their story here, and we are going to be putting those faces up front.”

The companion bill in the Senate faces a heavier lift because many of the Republicans who control the chamber run with the backing of the State Conservative Party, which adamantly opposes the measure.

A GOP lawmaker who represents much of the North Country in Albany said she would prefer to see more effort spent on strengthening hospice programs.

“I have seen time and again the unintended consequences of laws and regulations,” said Sen. Betty Little (R-Queensbury).

“Personally, I’d be very concerned that the lives of society’s most vulnerable, such as the elderly and those with severe disabilities, would become devalued,” she said.

Little’s comment echoed the concerns of the New York Catholic Conference.

In a position paper, the bishops argue that legalizing physician-assisted suicide would “blur longstanding medical, moral and legal distinctions between withdrawing extraordinary medical assistance and taking active steps to destroy human life. One lets people die a natural death; the other is the deliberate and direct act of hastening death.”

In addition to California and Oregon, the states that allow doctor-aided suicide are Vermont, Washington and Montana.

Joe Mahoney covers the New York Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jmahoney@cnhi.com

###