Orthodox Umbrella Group Backs New York Law Banning Assisted Suicide
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
NEW YORK (JTA) — Agudath Israel of America has filed a brief on behalf of a New York state law banning assisted suicide that is being challenged in the state’s highest court.
The haredi Orthodox group filed its amicus brief in the case of Myers v. Schneiderman, where arguments in the Court of Appeals are set to be heard starting May 30.
The organization End of Life Choices New York, its clinical director, three terminally ill patients and four doctors are suing for the right of doctors to provide medication to mentally competent, terminally ill patients who wish to die. The lead plaintiff, Sara Myers, died in 2016 following a six-year battle with ALS.
Agudah in its brief cited cases it had dealt with through its Chayim Aruchim project, which deals with end-of-life issues.
“Health care facilities (often) have simply refused to provide the treatment the patient …. equested, claiming that the patient’s ‘quality of life’ is so diminished that there is no point,” the brief states, according to a report this week in the Yeshiva World News.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
