Ex-AG Vacco will fight right-to-die bill

ALBANY — As supporters prepare to reintroduce legislation to allow physician-assisted suicide on Monday, a former state attorney general is planning to be a leading figure in the fight against it.

Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Westchester County) and Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) plan to hold a press conference to announce the reintroduction of the Medical Aid in Dying Act.

But critics of assisted suicide say it devalues human life and could put the most vulnerable under pressure from family, doctors and insurance companies to take advantage of the death option.

Former Attorney General Dennis Vacco (photo) said he plans to cross the state speaking out against the bill, which is opposed by the state Catholic Conference headed by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, other religious groups, and disability rights organizations.

The bill was introduced in New York last year, but failed to pass either chamber.

The lawmakers will be joined by some of their colleagues, Compassion & Choices New York Campaign Director Corinne Carey, and Susan Rahn, a young Rochester mother with terminal breast cancer.

“This is the beginning of the process,” Savino said. “I expect this to be a complicated, difficult conversation.”

Vacco said he will not be paid for his efforts and doesn’t plan to lobby state officials. As attorney general, Vacco in 1997 successfully argued a case against physician-assisted suicide before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Six states currently allow physician-assisted suicide, including California, which began allowing it in 2016.

New York is considered one of the next big

battlegrounds.

“Because of my prior involvement in the matter and, because I feel very strongly about it, I’m willing to once again step out again and talk about some of the issues I see wrong in the proposed legislation,” Vacco told the Daily News.

He said he objects on both legal and moral grounds.

“I believe New York is a target state for the right-to-die movement,” he said. “I think it’s going to continue to be an issue debated in the Legislature for at least this session and maybe beyond. Hopefully, we’re successful in defeating it.”

He said rather than allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, lawmakers would be better off dealing with addressing end-of-life issues.

Savino said she recognizes the issue is nowhere near a slam-dunk, but believes it’s important to give terminally ill patients the option.

“I think we still face the same complications we had from the beginning,” she said of opposition both inside and outside the Legislature.