New York

The Illinois Legislature has just passed an assisted suicide legalization bill, tying a black bow along with New York’s legalization bill passed a few months ago. Both measures still await signing by the states’ respective governors, which I fear is quite likely as the death agenda is firmly ensconced in blue state liberal/progressive policy on assisted suicide.

Should the bills get signed into law, more people will live in jurisdictions (including three of our most populous: California, New York, and Illinois) that validate some suicides and allow doctors to facilitate such deaths than live in states where assisted suicide remains illegal.

The states are nationalizing assisted suicide as well. New York’s bill has no residency requirement. Vermont and Oregon did away with theirs. And the Illinois bill’s residency requirement is so weak that one could become a resident in a day by, say, renting an apartment and registering to vote.

New York is close to passing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Having passed the assembly, it is currently being considered in the senate. I read the bill, and much of it consists of the usual obfuscating definitions and pretenses seen in all such proposals. But a few of the provisions struck me as particularly mendacious. First, it defines prescribing poison as a “medical practice.” From S. 138: “Medical aid in dying” means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death. Facilitating suicide is not, and never has been, “medical.” I could prescribe sufficient barbiturates to cause death by overdose. You could too. The only Read More ›

A bill has been filed in New York that would grant rights to the Great Lakes and all waterways in the state. (A similar law was enacted previously in Toledo, forcing Ohio to pass preemptive legislation.) I have no idea whether it will pass — I would certainly hope not — but it illustrates the profound anti-development/free market agendas behind the entire nature-rights movement. First, the bill would create a very expansive definition of the rights that would be accorded to the Great Lakes and New York waterways. From A05156A (italicized for emphasis): The Great Lakes, and the watersheds that drain into the Great Lakes and their connecting channels, as well as the watersheds and ecosystems throughout the state of Read More ›