Poll finds majority support for Medical Aid in Dying Act

Fresh off of a landmark victory in the Assembly, advocates for legislation that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with assistance from a doctor are out with a new poll showing broad public support for the measure.

Commissioned by the group End of Life Choice New York, the poll found that 68% of New Yorkers support the Medical Aid in Dying Act. Parkside Group and Public Strategies LLC conducted the survey on May 5-6 with 600 registered voters as participants. 

That strong majority holds true across party lines and nearly all demographics. Democrats showed the strongest support with 75% of those polled saying they backed the measure. But 60% of Republicans also supported it. Demographically, the lowest level of support came from Asian Americans, with only 50% reporting that they back the bill. However, the poll makes a note that Asian participants made up less than 10% of the sample and therefore the number was not statistically significant. 

“Polls show that this support transcends age, race, religious beliefs, and geographic location because New Yorkers of all backgrounds understand that each of us should have the right to safely and peacefully end our suffering if we have a terminal illness and wish to do so,” state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the bill’s Senate sponsor, said in a statement.

The idea of allowing someone to end their own life, even those who are terminally ill, with a prescription from a doctor is a polarizing issue that raises numerous ethical and moral questions. While some doctors support it, the consensus is not unanimous. And the Medical Aid in Dying Act has faced strong opposition from the Catholic Church, as some cite religious beliefs for not backing a measure to end one's life. 

But the new poll found that 65% of Catholics backed the legislation, despite the institutional opposition from the church. Additionally, 69% of Protestants also supported the measure. The lowest degree of support came from Jewish voters, of whom 55% reported support. But like Asian New Yorkers, the poll makes a point to say that the number is statistically insignificant given the small sample size. 

Advocates for the Medical Aid in Dying Act lobbied in favor of the bill for years with little success. But that changed last month when the Assembly approved the measure for the first time. “This poll confirms that New Yorkers across every demographic strongly support medical aid in dying,” said Mandi Zucker, executive director of End of Life Choices New York, who commissioned the poll.  “It’s time for the State Senate to pass this legislation so that New Yorkers with a terminal illness can die in peace, according to their own wishes.”

The legislation faces longer odds in the state Senate. where the bill currently has 25 cosponsors. State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins has not come out in support of the measure like Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did, but she indicated that she would be open to bringing it to a vote if enough lawmakers will vote yes. Hoylman-Sigal previously told City & State that he believes that enough of his colleagues would vote in favor if the bill came to a vote.

Yet opponents of the measure are not giving up. Yet opponents of the measure are not giving up. “Assisted suicide is an issue that is not top of mind for most voters, and many people of all backgrounds will respond favorably until they dig deeper,” Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said in response to the new poll. “For example, everyday New Yorkers likely don’t know the bill does not require a psychological evaluation for depression, has no mechanism for retrieval of unconsumed lethal drugs, and requires doctors to falsely state on death certificates that the cause of death was the underlying illness, not the consumption of a deadly drug cocktail.”

The Parkside Group and Public Strategies LLC poll is the first one to ask specifically about the Medical Aid in Dying Act in over a year. The last poll, conducted by YouGov and commissioned by Death With Dignity and the Completed Life Initiative, found similar levels of support for the measure. That poll, released in February of last year, found that 72% of New Yorkers surveyed either strongly supported, somewhat supported or leaned towards supporting the bill.