Published December 23, 2025
How humane is assisted suicide? Corinne Carey, from the advocacy group Compassion & Choices, suggests the answer is very (Letters, Dec. 17). New York’s bill places the decision only with a mentally competent patient, and “safeguards are in place to ensure that those who don’t qualify—say, those with eating disorders or psychiatric conditions—couldn’t receive it.”
No need to fear? Not quite.
That’s the same promise Compassion & Choices made in other states before legalization. Three years ago, the organization’s then-chief legal advocacy officer—recently promoted to CEO—promised that Colorado’s legislation “does not and was never intended to apply to a person whose only diagnosis is anorexia nervosa.”
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Alexander Raikin is a Visiting Fellow in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His research focuses on the dignity of human life and end-of-life issues, especially on its impact on the field of medicine and broader ethical questions of social belonging.
