The Horrors of Assisted Suicide

Sitting on New York governor Kathy Hochul’s desk is a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in New York. For years, a small group of assisted-suicide activists, usually bedecked in yellow, have lined the hallways of the capitol, urging lawmakers to show “compassion” for New Yorkers so that they can “die with dignity.” This past spring, the legislature acquiesced to their demands with the Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) Act, which would allow people with terminal diagnoses to request lethal drugs.

As Governor Hochul weighs whether to sign the bill, she should reflect on the macabre, life-denying philosophy she’d be endorsing by doing so. Case in point: the arguments for MAiD largely echo those of Lorenz Kraus, an Albany man who confessed on television to murdering his elderly, ailing parents in 2017 out of “a sense of duty” and “compassion.”

Late last month, Kraus sat down for what can only be described as a Hitchcockian interview with Greg Floyd, a reporter with CBS6 in Albany. After initially evading the question, Kraus admitted that he had strangled his father and choked his mother with a rope, before burying them both in their backyard. His parents, he said, “were losing their independence,” and his “concern for their misery was paramount.”

Kraus then pivoted to policy, describing the suffering of elderly Americans as a “societal crisis,” and warning that the country has 40 million Baby Boomers, many of whom will “suffer a horrible death,” as he sees it. “I did the right thing for [my parents] based on the situation,” he said.

Maybe Kraus was lying and simply wanted his parents’ Social Security checks, which he continued to receive. But many of his statements typify those of right-to-die advocates. Consider, for example, proponents’ comments ahead of the New York State Senate’s passage of the MAiD Act. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, the bill’s lead sponsor, said that the state was “finally on the brink of giving terminally ill New Yorkers the autonomy and dignity they deserve at life’s end,” adding that the “legislation is about easing needless suffering and honoring deeply personal choices.” Corinne Carey of Compassion & Choices, a group formerly known as the Hemlock Society, said, “Majorities in both houses are leading with love.”

These groups likely wouldn’t endorse Kraus’s alleged actions. Nonetheless, legalization of “aid in dying” sends the message that the state endorses suicide as a response to suffering—and that certain lives aren’t worth living.

Once a government does this—even if only for those with a “terminal diagnosis”—it opens the floodgates. Why wouldn’t other, lesser forms of suffering also justify a patient’s wishing to die? Why would the state stand in the way of this supposedly most personal of decisions, even as it (rightly) spends millions annually on various suicide-prevention programs?

Canada, which legalized assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in 2016 and then removed the terminal illness requirement in 2021, demonstrates how quickly such laws get used to justify suicide for nonlethal conditions. In 2022, for example, the Canadian government allowed 2,264 people to end their lives because of loneliness, 323 because they couldn’t access palliative care, and 196 because they couldn’t obtain disability support.

Oregon, which effectively legalized assisted suicide in 1997, has seen similar trends. Last year, the top reasons for choosing assisted suicide were loss of autonomy (88.6 percent), engaging in fewer enjoyable activities (87.8 percent), and a perceived loss of dignity (63.6 percent).

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that ending his parents’ suffering was Kraus’s only motive, he might have packed his folks off to Canada to schedule their demise. And in that case, he’d be an assisted-suicide advocate in good standing.

Maybe he would even have been among those urging Governor Hochul to sign the Medical Aid in Dying Act.

Photo: Penpak Ngamsathain / Moment via Getty Images