Cuomo Says He'd Sign Assisted Suicide Bill [POLL]

Should people with terminal illnesses be allowed to get help ending their lives from physicians? This week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would sign a law that allowed end-of-life measures.

On WAMC Tuesday, the governor acknowledged that the topic was a difficult one for many people, but he would support it depending on how the legislation was written, pix11.com said.

Cuomo said that two physicians would have to be involved in the decision to use life-ending medications and both would have to sign off on it.

The state of New Jersey just enacted legalized assisted suicide and Gov. Phil Murphy signed the legislation Friday. The law will take effect Aug. 1.

The bill makes New Jersey the eighth state to allow end-of-life decisions with the assistance of medical professionals.

According to the "Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act," a patient's attending and consulting physicians have to determine the person seeking the assistance has a life expectancy of six months or less, has the capacity to make health care decisions and is acting voluntarily in order for the person to obtain the medication.

Among the requirements is that the person must be an adult resident of New Jersey.

Previous bills in Albany stalled because of Republican control of the Senate and opposition from the Catholic Church, the Daily News said.

A spokesman for the state Catholic Conference, Dennis Poust, said a right-to-die bill would set a dangerous precedent, calling it a "romanticized pro-suicide message at a time of increasing suicide rates."

A Quinnipiac poll from May found that New York State voters said, by 63 percent to 29 percent, that doctors should be allowed to legally prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their own lives.

The poll said the only voters who opposed it were people who attend weekly religious services. They opposed the measure 61 to 34 percent.

Corinne Carey, New York and New Jersey campaign director for Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit working to ensure that healthcare providers honor and enable patients' decisions about care, said this was the first time Cuomo spoke publicly on the issue, so that should help lawmakers in passing the legislation, according to a release on the organization's website.

"There's no reason New Yorkers should not have the same option to peacefully end needless suffering this year that New Jerseyans will have in just a few months," she said.

Now it's your turn to weigh in on the issue. Vote in our unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments.