State Sen. George Borrello still can’t support an amended Medical Aid In Dying bill that passed the Assembly and Senate this week.

The state Legislature passed a version of the bill in 2025, but Gov. Kathy Hochul required several amendments before she could sign the legislation into law. Those amendments were approved this week in a largely party line vote in both chambers of the legislature.

“Let me reiterate what I said when we first debated this bill,” Borrello said this week after a floor debate with Sen. Gustavo Rivera. “I have known many people, including very close family members and friends who had terminal illnesses and have died a death that quite frankly wasn’t dignified. So I understand the purpose of this. I just don’t agree with the method, or even quite frankly, that the government should be involved in this. I will never agree with that. There is no amount of changes to this bill that makes it better, in my opinion.”

Additional protections that are included in the chapter amendments are designed to protect the integrity of the patient’s decision and the preparedness of medical institutions to appropriately administer medical aid in dying. They include: a mandatory waiting period of five days between when a prescription is written and filled; an oral request by the patient for medical aid in dying must be recorded by video or audio; a mandatory mental health evaluation of the patient seeking medical aid in dying by a psychologist or psychiatrist; and a prohibition against anyone who may benefit financially from the death of a patient from being eligible to serve as a witness to the oral request or an interpreter for the patient.

The changes also limit the availability of medical aid in dying to New York residents; require the initial evaluation of a patient by a physician be done in person; allow religiously-oriented home hospice providers to opt out of offering medical aid in dying; create a violation of the law is defined as professional misconduct under the Education Law; and give six months for the state Health Department to create regulations to implement the law while also ensuring that health care facilities can properly prepare and train staff for compliance.

Borrello has concerns over the control over life-ending drugs and making sure they are taken by the person to whom they are prescribed or how some patients with debilitating physical issues will actually take the medication. Borrello also detailed a meeting he had with clients at The Resource Center who expressed concerns.

“I was requested a meeting by some self advocates, people with developmental disabilities at The Resource Center in my district,” Borrello said. “I went there thinking we’d have donuts and coffee and chat like we always do. No, this time they turned into political self-advocates. They asked me about this bill. They are frightened about the results of this bill in other countries and area, people with developmental disabilities are being allowed to end their life. This is the slippery slope that we’re on. … It is a very slippery slope. It is devaluing life. Those self advocates and those people who every day spend their life with horrible disabilities that have a good quality of life are worried.”

Rivera, D-Bronx, said the legislation has appropriate safeguards while supporting the negotiated changes to the legislation. Those changes, he said, create several additional opportunities for someone to reconsider the decision to end their life.

“At the core of it, of course, all of us are concerned about creating a situation in which somebody would take advantage of any type of bill,” Rivera said. “To actually say that someone who is elderly or disabled should pass away, that is never what this bill has been about. It has always been about creating a set of conditions where someone on their own can make a decision about what their life needs to be.”