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AMERICANALMANAC (Alan Benson) - Catholic nuns challenge New York's assisted suicide law in federal court, citing religious liberty Fri Jul 24 16:58:03 2026

A coalition of Catholic religious orders and healthcare providers is suing New York to block an assisted suicide law they say forces nuns to counsel dying patients about ending their lives, and the Department of Justice just signaled it's paying attention. The lawsuit, filed by the religious liberty law firm Becket on behalf of more […] The post Catholic nuns challenge New York's assisted suicide law in federal court, citing religious liberty appeared first on American Almanac .

A coalition of Catholic religious orders and healthcare providers is suing New York to block an assisted suicide law they say forces nuns to counsel dying patients about ending their lives, and the Department of Justice just signaled it's paying attention. The lawsuit, filed by the religious liberty law firm Becket on behalf of more than a dozen Catholic plaintiffs, targets New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act before it takes effect on August 5, 2026. The plaintiffs include four religious orders, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, the Little Sisters of the Poor, along with the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Bishop John Barres, and Catholic Health, which operates hospitals across the state. They want a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction halting the law. Their core claim: New York has "conscripted" Catholic nuns and faith-based providers into what Becket calls a "suicide counseling mandate," forcing them to inform patients about the supposed benefits of ending their own lives, participate in the multi-step qualification process, and refer patients to providers willing to prescribe lethal drugs. The complaint raises 11 counts, seven rooted in the First Amendment, two in federal preemption, and two under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantees. Nuns who serve the dying say New York wants them to offer death instead The religious orders at the center of this case are not abstract institutions. They run homes for the elderly and terminally ill. The Benedictine Sisters operate St. Joseph's Home for the Aged, where residents would, under the MAID Act, be permitted to take lethal drugs inside the facility. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have ministered to the dying poor for more than a century. Mother Marie Edward, Superior General of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, told Fox News : "For over 125 years, we have ministered to the poor who are dying of cancer as if they were Christ Himself. Our calling is to offer comfort, prayer, and loving medical care to those in their final days, not death." The lawsuit frames the conflict in direct terms. Catholic teaching holds that life ends naturally, neither prolonged by futile medical intervention nor cut short. The complaint states that the sisters' faith "leads them to accept death as the natural end to a life well-lived: neither artificially prolonging it through burdensome technological and medical interventions that provide no reasonable benefit, nor artificially hastening it." Requiring them to counsel patients about assisted suicide, Becket argues, strikes at the heart of that mission. And the law's opt-out provision, according to the complaint, offers little real protection. Becket described it as "among the narrowest in the nation." The Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, who operate enhanced assisted living facilities, fall outside its scope entirely. Catholic Health's hospitals face a separate problem: the lawsuit alleges the MAID Act could require providers to falsify death certificates by listing a cause of death other than the lethal drugs a patient took. Mark Rienzi warns the law targets patients 'at their lowest moment' The legal architecture the plaintiffs are challenging involves two statutes working in tandem. New York's 2011 Palliative Care Information Act already required healthcare providers to inform patients about available treatment options. The MAID Act, signed into law in February 2025, National Review reported , amended that earlier law by adding assisted suicide to the menu of options providers must discuss. The combined effect, Becket argues, creates a compelled-speech regime that forces Catholic providers to promote a practice they regard as gravely sinful. The law itself allows terminally ill patients eighteen and older who have been given six months or less to live to request life-ending medication. Governor Kathy Hochul has maintained that participation is voluntary and that religious facilities may opt out. But the plaintiffs say the opt-out is a fiction, too narrow to cover many of their facilities and too weak to protect individual providers from penalties. Mark Rienzi, president of Becket, put it bluntly: "New York is forcing sick and dying people to consider suicide at their lowest moment, regardless of whether they ask for it or not." The penalties for non-compliance are not trivial. The lawsuit warns of "crippling fines, professional sanctions, and criminal penalties." Providers could lose their professional licenses. Catholic institutions could lose their standing as Catholic organizations if they comply with the mandate. And because many of these facilities accept Medicare and Medicaid patients, the facilitation requirements could jeopardize federal funding, putting the institutions in an impossible bind between state law and federal religious liberty protections. DOJ guidance on religious liberty lands days before the August 5 deadline The timing of the lawsuit coincides with a broader federal push on religious liberty. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued government-wide updated guidance last week directing federal agencies to "proactively consider religious-liberty impacts when developing rules and policies, designate officers to review regulatory proposals for compliance," and weigh "religious-liberty concerns raised by the public during notice-and-comment periods." The guidance incorporates the past decade of Supreme Court precedent on religious freedom, Just the News reported . That precedent cuts sharply in the plaintiffs' favor. In 2018, the Supreme Court blocked a California mandate that required pro-life pregnancy centers to help women find abortion providers, a compelled-speech case with clear parallels to the New York dispute. In 2020, the Court upheld the Trump administration's decision to remove the Obamacare contraceptive mandate's "accommodation" process, a case in which the Little Sisters of the Poor, one of the plaintiffs here, were the lead challengers. And as recently as last year, the Court unanimously ruled that religious organizations serving people of all faiths do not forfeit their religious exemptions simply because they welcome non-Catholics. The Supreme Court has also twice overturned New York courts that upheld the state's abortion coverage mandate, a pattern that suggests New York's track record of forcing religious providers to participate in practices they oppose does not hold up well at the highest level. The Trump administration has already intervened on behalf of one plaintiff in a separate dispute. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne faced a lawsuit over New York's coed housing law, which involved gender-identity-based room assignment rules. The administration stepped in on the nuns' side. Becket is also representing the Little Sisters of the Poor at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, seeking to overturn a federal judge's ruling against the Trump administration's contraceptive mandate exemption. Disability rights groups raise a parallel challenge on different grounds The Catholic plaintiffs are not alone in challenging the MAID Act. A disability rights coalition filed its own federal lawsuit in June 2026, arguing the law discriminates against people with disabilities by offering death as a substitute for adequate care and support services, the New York Post reported . That suit names Governor Hochul and state health officials as defendants and raises claims under the ADA and the Fourteenth Amendment, two of the same legal theories the Catholic plaintiffs invoke. Sharon Shapiro of the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled framed the issue in stark terms: "When states legalize assisted suicide while simultaneously cutting home care and community-based services, they send a dangerous message: that death is a solution for disability and lack of support. This is not 'choice,' it's discrimination." Matt Vallière of the Institute for Patients' Rights added that the legal actions "are about affirming that every person has inestimable value and dignity, regardless of age, disability, or prognosis, and ensuring that no one is treated as disposable under the law." The complaint also cites public health research. Becket's filing warns that "public health researchers have extensively documented that an increase in the public discussion of suicide is often followed by an increase in suicide rates." Compelling Catholic providers to discuss assisted suicide with every eligible patient, whether or not the patient asks, could contribute to that dynamic, the plaintiffs argue. The MAID Act distinguishes New York from states on the West Coast that have legalized assisted suicide, according to the lawsuit. Those states do not require healthcare providers to proactively counsel patients about the option. New York's mandate goes further, and the lawsuit argues that the combination of the MAID Act and the 2011 Palliative Care Information Act creates a compelled-speech regime unlike any other in the country. New York has not publicly responded to the lawsuit. No hearing date on the preliminary injunction has been announced. The clock is running: August 5 is less than two weeks away. When a state tells nuns who have spent their lives caring for the dying that they must now promote death as a treatment option, the law has stopped protecting patients and started coercing the people who serve them. The post Catholic nuns challenge New York's assisted suicide law in federal court, citing religious liberty appeared first on American Almanac .