Some days, it feels like I am screaming into a void, hearing my warnings echo in a hollow space but never landing on the ears of those who have the power to heed my message and make changes.
Today is one of those days. New York has become the 13th state to allow medically-assisted suicide, joining Illinois and others who believe the "compassionate" way to deal with terminal illnesses is to put human beings to sleep like dogs.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) says she will sign the Medical Aid in Dying Act, making New York the 13th state to allow physician-assisted death.https://t.co/SbUBnLStcD
— Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) December 17, 2025
That last part hits particularly close to home this week, as I came home from a wonderful weekend in North Carolina to say farewell to Bubba, the Catahoula Leopard my family adopted just days before Thanksgiving in 2012. For 13 years, he was our constant companion — through my divorce, nursing school, the deaths of my father and ex-husband — Bubba was there. My eldest was five when we adopted him; I was pregnant with my youngest, who literally grew up with Bubba (aside: adopting a puppy while pregnant and right before the holidays is, in a word, challenging.)
But Bubba, beloved as he was and as missed as he will be, was still a dog. It was my moral obligation as his human to make sure I ended his suffering after something (a stroke? a tumor?) suddenly robbed him of his ability to walk on Monday morning.
Gov. Kathy Hochul says she will sign the Medical Aid in Dying Act, making New York the 13th state to allow physician-assisted death.
The Democratic governor wrote Wednesday in the Albany Times Union that she’s approving the legislation after state lawmakers agreed to enact additional safeguards. They include residency restrictions, a five-day waiting period, and a requirement that patients record their oral request to end their lives.
Hochul wrote she watched her mother die slowly of ALS, a debilitating nerve disease. The governor said she weighed the state’s tradition of fostering individual rights against her own religious beliefs.
“I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be,” Hochul wrote. “This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life.”
Human beings, however, are different than dogs. Some will say we're made in the image and likeness of God, something that endows us with inherent dignity. I agree with that, but I also know this: such government-sponsored programs always, invariably, expand and become death-machines.
Today, it's "terminally ill adults" (as the legislation in Illinois specifies). Tomorrow, it's veterans, anorexics, the disabled, and those with perfectly treatable illnesses like the one Jolene Van Alstine has been living with for years. Van Alstine has hyperparathyroidism, a disease caused by adenoma(s) on the parathyroid gland(s). It can cause elevated calcium levels, leading to bone damage and destruction of soft tissue. Jolene suffers from pain, nausea, and vomiting.
It's an illness that can be easily corrected with a short surgery. But no endocrinologists in her area are taking new patients (gee, I thought healthcare was a right?), which means Van Alstine couldn't get a referral for the surgery to correct her condition. Instead, Canada's government offered to end her life via its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.
Instead of a compassionate way to provide "death with dignity," Canada has turned MAiD into a wholesale euthanasia machine, making euthanasia the fifth leading cause of death in the country. Canada expanded its definition of MAiD in 2021 to include those for whom "death is not reasonably foreseeable." Between 2016 and 2023, about 60,000 Canadians were euthanized (Heritage says that number is closer to 90,000), including 15,000 in 2023. Euthanasia now accounts for about five percent of all deaths. Compare that to Oregon, the first state in America to legalize assisted suicide; in 2023, 376 people died by assisted suicide, or less than one percent of the state's total deaths.
There's no reason to believe that the U.S. won't go the same way as Canada, especially if Democrats get their way and enact single-payer healthcare. Ending someone's life is cheaper than constant medical care or paying for medical equipment for the disabled. It is also a powerful tool for major compliance and political blackmail: do what we say, or we'll off you.
Democrats already danced with this idea by advocating the withholding of healthcare from those who didn't receive the COVID vaccine. Why would anyone trust them not to withhold healthcare for any other reason, including political ones? I keep warning people of the slippery slope this is, and those warnings seem to fall on deaf ears.
Do I believe those with terminal illnesses should suffer? Of course not. My former mother-in-law, ironically, died from complications of ALS in 2011 — just like Hochul's mother. It was a long slog to watch Judy "die by inches," as we called it, but she also lived to see the birth of my second son and her great-granddaughters. I am also a strong proponent of hospice, and spent five years doing it at home. Managing pain and other symptoms was my job, and that was helping people die with dignity.
What New York, Illinois, and 11 other states are doing? It's not. It's euthanasia and treating people like less than animals. And I say that because, had I simply gotten sick of caring for Bubba and asked a vet to put him down, I would've been considered an animal-abusing monster. And my critics would've been correct.
So why is what would be abhorrent if done to a family pet considered "compassion" when it comes from the government and impacts people? It makes no sense.
Yes, God is merciful, the state is not. Canada has proven that beyond all doubt.
So the state should stop playing God.
