ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s tortured decision to sign legislation that will allow some terminally ill New Yorkers to obtain life-ending medications caps a contentious, decade-long debate over the issue.
But the governor’s move was blasted by the Catholic Church and even sparked blowback from aid-in-dying advocates due to additional restrictions Hochul insisted on adding to the law.
The final deal, which limits access to patients with less than six months to live, includes some controversial safeguards that advocates fought and say will make it the most restrictive such measure in the country. Thirteen states now allow doctors to prescribe life-ending medications for terminally ill patients, with Illinois enacting such legislation last week.
The Catholic governor said she wrestled with the decision for weeks, but ultimately spoke with advocates — some of whom were terminally ill — whose personal stories swayed her to sign the measure.
“I can’t stand here — even as a Catholic — and say I can’t allow someone else to do something that I perhaps would not do. I cannot stand in their way,” Hochul said to POLITICO on Wednesday. “I’m hoping that [our faith leaders] give me some grace to pray for me — as all of them said they would do — as we continue to focus on issues affecting the living.”
By Robert Spencer, 12/12/25, pictured here.
The jihad attack against Jews who were celebrating Hanukkah at Australia’s Bondi Beach and the ISIS murder of two American servicemen in Syria has brought renewed attention to the ongoing problem of Islamic jihad violence, and as the usual denial, obfuscation, and willful ignorance continue, it looks as if we just got more jihad in Washington state.
King5.com in Washington reported Monday that “a 38-year-old man is accused of making a false 911 call, then stabbing a responding Bellevue Police Department police officer with a kitchen knife on Friday, Dec. 12.” That man is named Mohamed Morray Bangura, which raises yet again the very real possibility that he did all this because his namesake, the prophet of Islam, commanded his followers to “kill them wherever you find them” (Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, 4:91, cf. 9:5).
Bangura seems to have desired to attack some police officers and developed a plan that would enable him to do so; he has accordingly been charged with first-degree and second-degree assault, and as Monday evening, was still in jail on $5 million bail. It seems that last Friday, Bangura called 911 from the Bellevue Transit Center, a bus and light rail station. He gave the 911 dispatcher what is being described as a “fake scenario” and asked that “an officer or two” be sent to the station.
Rowan Dean
Nobody thought to stop them entering this country. Nobody thought to question their fitness to be new Australian citizens.
We have seen this story play out in Europe, in Britain, and in the United States.
Many people now have blood on their hands.
According to the latest report on “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) from Health Canada released at the end of last month, there was a 6.9% increase in state-assisted deaths in Canada in 2024.
In 2024, although assisted suicide is permitted, in which the person who wishes to end their own life self-administers the lethal substance, there was not a single case of assisted suicide. Instead, every single person who died under Canada’s MAiD programme died by euthanasia. In 2023, there were fewer than five instances of assisted suicide.
There have been a total of 76,475 instances of euthanasia and assisted suicide since they were made legal in Canada in 2016.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul [pictured right] is requesting substantial changes to a “nightmare” bill that would turn New York into a destination state for physician-assisted suicide.
The New York Assembly approved the Medical Aid in Dying Act (AB 136) on April 29 in a 81-67 vote. The state Senate subsequently passed the bill on June 9 in a 35-27 vote.
The bill permits individuals with “an incurable and irreversible illness, with six months or less to live,” to kill themselves with a doctor’s help via a lethal cocktail of drugs.
Importantly, the bill currently contains no residency requirement, allowing terminally ill individuals from out of state to come to New York to end their lives. This provision would essentially ensure all Americans could access physician-assisted suicide.
Check back in for updates as the weather system progresses....
Key developments:
Chauvin submitted the filing last month in Hennepin County District Court. In the filing, Chauvin claims his conviction should be vacated, saying flawed medical testimony, misrepresented police training and faulty jury instructions warrant a new trial or evidentiary hearing.
Chauvin disputes the conclusions of four physicians who reviewed a medical examiner’s report on Floyd’s death, insisting they relied on video evidence of Minneapolis police officers restraining Floyd.
