New York is long overdue to consider death with dignity
A barroom debate that turned out to be very depressing
Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE
There is no more helpless feeling than when the doctor tells you there is nothing more they can do for your loved one.
That happened to my wife and I this past year.
During 13 years of cancer treatment, there were several moments of utter despair where she blurted out, "Just take me out and shoot me."
"Honey, they won't let me do that," I would tell her.
She persevered. She rallied. She survived.
We both believed in death with dignity laws like the one that Vermont has on the books. That's a nice way of saying "assisted suicide." We even talked about renting an apartment for a month to gain residency in Vermont if the situation became dire.
When we came home after the final doctor's visit earlier this year, she just looked at me and said, "I'm a goner."
She had said it before, but this time she was right.
When I brought up going to Vermont, she remembered the original law required residency, but the law has since been amended and you just need a Vermont doctor. I told her if that was what she wanted, I could find out what needed to be done.
We never talked about it again.
She wanted to be in her home, her bed.
When my mother was in her final days, I was told she would go to sleep and it would be a peaceful death. But that was not my experience. For days, my mother's frail and aging body fought for every last breath in desperation to survive. The will of the human body is remarkable and my experience is that it neither quiet nor peaceful.
Watching a loved one's body fail is a terrible thing. As my wife's caregiver in those final days, I worked diligently with the medical professionals to ensure she did not suffer, but I'm not sure we were always successful.
My wife loved her life and her family and I believe she hung on for as long as she did because of that. But I believe more than ever that we as human beings should have options when it comes to end of life care. When we are ready, we should be allowed to make that decision. The people who love us should not be made to suffer through an ordeal.
Thirty years ago, the people in the state of Oregon became the first to endorse the "Death with Dignity Act. Since then, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont and the District of Columbia have adopted similar laws.
Nineteen other states have introduced legislation, including New York.
For the ninth straight year, the "New York Medical Aid in Dying Act" failed to get through the New York State Legislature.
We don't hear a lot about it.
Few want to be crusaders on this issue.
Polling from the "Death with Dignity" organization shows that 72 percent of New Yorkers support medical aid in dying.
So what's the problem?
This past year, new amendments were added to the bill and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Democrat, gave his support to the bill. So did the New York State Council of Churches which represents eight different religious denominations.
None of this is something any of us want to think about, until the doctor says there is nothing more that can be done.
I'm hoping people like Sen. Dan Stec and Assemblyman Matt Simpson support this legislation. If they don't, I hope it is out of some sense of morality and not politics.
This issue should not be politicized.
It should at least get a vote. Three out of four of us demand it.
Text from Elise
Rep. Elise Stefanik reached out to me this week in a text.
She wanted to know if I was voting for her.
She asked to reply with the number 1 if I planned to vote for her, the number 2 if I was not and the number 3 if I was undecided.
I replied with the number 3 - a bit of a lie but Rep. Stefanik is very familiar with lies - to see if she would try to convince me.
Not long after that I got a text asking if I would like more information about Elise and it provided a link to her website www.eliseforcongress.com where there are options to buy lots of "Elise" merchandise and in a video she says she has held over 2,000 local events, yet I have not seen any advertised in Queensbury or Glens Falls in years.
I replied, "Where is her next town hall meeting."
I have not gotten an answer yet.
Another great sign
There seems to be a grassroots campaign developing locally where voters are showing their displeasure with Congressional incumbent Elise Stefanik by turning her own political yard signs against her.
More and more you are seeing these signs as a sign of protest.
I hope we see more since her opponent, Paula Collins, cannot afford signs.
The best was shared with me by a colleague and is on the corner of Dixon Road and Old Forge in the Town of Queensbury.
There is a lot of creativity out there.
Bar debate
While visiting my son in New Orleans this week, we stopped off at a local hotel after dinner for a nightcap.
My son and I were talking baseball with the Mets losing 8-0 on the bar television.
Finally, a middle-aged black man at the bar jumped into the conversation. He said he was originally from Rockland County and was a Yankees and Giants fan.
He said he hoped the Yankees played the Dodgers in the World Series because the Mets scared him. I pointed out that during the regular season the Mets had beaten the Yankees four straight games so he might be right.
When he said he also followed the Giants, I told him I shared his pain because I was a Giants fan as well.
But at some point, the man made a disparaging remark about Kamala Harris. I think he was trying to be funny. The bartender pushed back and asked how he could possibly support Donald Trump.
I made a comment as well and the man looked me in the eye and asked, "You really think Kamala is better?" That's when I told him I would vote for a 4-year-old toddler over Donald Trump because our democracy was at stake. The bartender joined in and so did my son.
We told him about Project 2025 and Trump's plan to open concentration camps to deport a million illegal immigrants.
What was shocking to me was he didn't seem to know any of this.
He seemed to be treating this as a normal election between candidates with different ideas.
We left the bar more frightened than ever.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
On Trump--I loved your answer at the bar and was glad that the bartender agreed. I keep thinking that surely people will see and hear how unhinged and cruel Trump and Vance are, about the litany of lies, about what he says he will do, how his words and actions harm and hurt. But what I hear is people talking about how good Trump was about the economy, not recognizing all the incredibly good actions by Biden and Harris and how good our economy is now because of their actions, and not caring about earth (climate change) and Democracy. The level of denial about what is essential. I also hear, directly and indirectly, misogyny and patriarchal power and white power...
I understand that there are now 5 or 6 Harris/Walz signs up on 9N in Lake Luzerne now.