What Is Medical Aid in Dying, and Is It Legal in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut?

The short answer: medical aid in dying is legal in New Jersey and, since August 5, 2026, in New York. It is not legal in Connecticut. In both states where it exists, the law lets a terminally ill adult resident with a prognosis of six months or less, who has decision-making capacity and asks personally, obtain a prescription for medication that the patient may choose to self-administer. Two physicians must agree on the diagnosis and the patient’s capacity. No health care agent, guardian, or advance directive can make the request for someone else, and a will, insurance policy, or contract that tries to condition anything on the choice is void to that extent. The two statutes differ in their details, and the details are where families and physicians go wrong.

This article explains what the New Jersey and New York laws allow and require, why Connecticut residents have no comparable option, how the laws treat insurance, wills, and death certificates, and what the existence of these laws means for the advance directives everyone should have regardless.

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What Is Medical Aid in Dying?

It is a medical practice, defined by statute, in which a physician prescribes medication to a terminally ill patient who has asked for it and who may then decide whether to take it. New York’s statute defines it as “the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death.” New Jersey’s Act uses the same structure: the patient obtains “medication that the patient may choose to self-administer.”

Three things distinguish it from what it is often confused with. It is not euthanasia, in which someone else administers the medication; New Jersey’s Act states that nothing in it authorizes anyone “to end a patient’s life by lethal injection, active euthanasia, or mercy killing,” and New York’s requires self-administration, defined as the patient’s “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary act to ingest medication.” It is not the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, which every competent adult in every state may already refuse, and which a health care agent may refuse on an incapacitated patient’s behalf. And it is not hospice or palliative care, which treat suffering and remain available to every patient whether or not they qualify for or want aid in dying. The National Institute on Aging’s distinction is useful: “in palliative care, a person does not have to give up treatment that might cure a serious illness,” while “hospice care is a specific type of palliative care that is provided in the final weeks or months of life.” A patient considering aid in dying is, by definition, eligible for hospice, and most who use the law are enrolled in it.

How Does New Jersey’s Law Work?

New Jersey’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, P.L.2019, c.59, codified at N.J.S.A. 26:16-1 and following, was approved April 12, 2019 and took effect August 1, 2019.

Who qualifies. A “qualified terminally ill patient” is “a capable adult who is a resident of New Jersey and has satisfied the requirements to obtain a prescription.” “Terminally ill” means “the patient is in the terminal stage of an irreversibly fatal illness, disease, or condition with a prognosis, based upon reasonable medical certainty, of a life expectancy of six months or less.” “Capable” means “having the capacity to make health care decisions and to communicate them to a health care provider.” Residency must be documented under N.J.S.A. 26:16-11 with a New Jersey driver’s license or non-driver identification card, proof of New Jersey voter registration, a New Jersey resident income tax return for the most recent year, or another government record the physician reasonably believes shows current residency.

The request. Under N.J.S.A. 26:16-10, “the patient shall make two oral requests and one written request.” At least 15 days must pass between the first and second oral requests, at least 15 days between the first oral request and the writing of a prescription, and at least 48 hours between the physician’s receipt of the written request and the prescription. The written request must be “signed and dated by the patient and witnessed by at least two individuals,” at least one of whom is not a relative, not entitled to any part of the patient’s estate, and not an owner, operator, or employee of a health care facility where the patient is receiving care. The attending physician may not be a witness.

The physicians. The attending physician must make the initial determination that the patient is terminally ill, capable, and acting voluntarily; require proof of residency; and refer the patient to a consulting physician, who must examine the patient and the records, confirm the diagnosis in writing, and verify “that the patient is capable, is acting voluntarily, and has made an informed decision.” If either physician believes the patient may not be capable, N.J.S.A. 26:16-8 requires a referral to a mental health professional, and no prescription may be written until that professional confirms capacity in writing. The medication may not be sent by mail or courier.

Who may not act. N.J.S.A. 26:16-16 provides that a guardian, conservator, health care representative, or patient’s representative “shall not be authorized to take any action on behalf of a patient” under the Act, “except for communicating the patient’s health care decisions to a health care provider if the patient so requests.”

Facilities. Participation by a health care facility “shall be voluntary on the part of the facility,” and a facility’s policies govern what its professionals may do on its premises. State guidance requires a facility that does not participate to handle patient notification, referral, and transfer.

Numbers. The Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner reports annually. For 2025, its data summary records 174 cases filed, of which 162 patients “fully participated,” meaning they took the medication and died, 12 died without taking it, and 4 had received medication but had not been reported as deceased. The 2024 report recorded 128 cases filed and 122 who fully participated.

How Does New York’s New Law Work?

New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act passed the Assembly in April 2025 and the Senate in June 2025, was delivered to the Governor on December 31, 2025, and was signed on February 6, 2026 as Chapter 714 of the Laws of 2025, together with a chapter amendment, Chapter 1 of the Laws of 2026, that delayed the effective date to 180 days after enactment and added provisions on facility opt-outs and home access. The Department of Health announced that the law “took effect today, August 5” in a release dated August 5, 2026. It is codified as Public Health Law Article 28-F, sections 2899-d through 2899-s.

Who qualifies. A “patient” is “a resident of New York state who is eighteen years of age or older under the care of a physician,” and a “qualified individual” is “a patient with a terminal illness or condition, who has decision-making capacity, has made an informed decision, and has satisfied the requirements of this article.” A “terminal illness or condition” is “an incurable and irreversible illness or condition that has been medically confirmed and will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within six months.” The statute does not list residency documents; the Department of Health’s guidance says patients “are required to attest to their New York State residency.”

The request. Under section 2899-e, the patient “shall make an oral request and submit a written request to the patient’s attending physician.” The oral request must be “recorded by an audio or video device and permanently stored in the patient’s medical record,” a requirement New Jersey does not have. The written request must be witnessed by “at least two adults,” and the excluded witnesses include relatives, estate beneficiaries, facility staff, domestic partners, and “health care agents, or agents under power of attorney.” The statute is explicit that “requests for a medical aid-in-dying prescription must be made by the qualified individual and may not be made by any other individual, including the qualified individual’s health care agent, or other agent or surrogate, or via advance healthcare directive.”

The physicians and the evaluation. The attending physician must “examine the patient in person,” with telehealth permitted only on a documented “extraordinary hardship.” A consulting physician must examine the patient and the records and confirm the terminal illness, capacity, informed decision, and that “the patient is acting voluntarily, of the patient’s own volition and without coercion.” Unlike New Jersey, New York requires a mental health evaluation for every patient: “before a patient who is requesting medication may receive a prescription under this article, a mental health professional must evaluate the patient.” The prescription “shall not be filled until five days after the prescription has been written.”

Facilities and home access. Under section 2899-m, a private health care facility may prohibit the practice on its premises if it adopts a formal policy based on religious or moral beliefs and gives notice, and “nothing in this section shall be construed to restrict a patient at home from accessing care under this article.”

Why Is There No Comparable Law in Connecticut?

Because the General Assembly has not passed one. Bills have been introduced repeatedly. The most recent, Proposed House Bill 5625 of the 2025 session, “An Act Concerning Aid in Dying for Terminally Ill Patients,” was referred to the Public Health Committee on January 21, 2025 and received no further action, and the 2026 committee bill lists contain no aid-in-dying bill. A Connecticut resident who wishes to use one of the neighboring states’ laws cannot, because both New Jersey and New York limit eligibility to their own residents.

Connecticut residents retain every other end-of-life right: to refuse or withdraw treatment, to appoint a health care representative and sign a living will under General Statutes 19a-575 and following, and to receive hospice and palliative care.

How Do These Laws Treat Insurance, Wills, and the Death Certificate?

Both statutes anticipate the ways a death under the law could be used against the patient’s family, and forbid them.

Not suicide. New Jersey’s N.J.S.A. 26:16-17 provides that any action taken under the Act “shall not constitute patient abuse or neglect, suicide, assisted suicide, mercy killing, euthanasia, or homicide under any law of this State,” and the Act amended the criminal statute on aiding suicide to say the same. New York’s section 2899-n provides that actions under the article “shall not be construed to constitute suicide, assisted suicide, attempted suicide, promoting a suicide attempt, euthanasia, mercy killing, or homicide.”

Insurance. New Jersey’s N.J.S.A. 26:16-14 provides that the issuance or premium of a “life, health, or accident insurance policy or annuity shall not be conditioned upon or otherwise take into account the making or rescinding of a request.” New York’s section 2899-n provides that beneficiaries “shall not be denied benefits under a life insurance policy for actions taken in accordance with this article.” A suicide exclusion in a policy does not apply.

Wills and contracts. New Jersey’s N.J.S.A. 26:16-14 also provides that a provision in a “contract, will, insurance policy, annuity, or other agreement” is not valid “to the extent that the provision would condition or restrict a person’s decision to make or rescind a request.” A parent cannot be disinherited, or bribed, over the choice.

Death certificate. New York’s section 2899-p provides that “the cause of death listed on a qualified individual’s death certificate who dies after self-administering medication under this article will be the underlying terminal illness or condition.” New Jersey’s Act has no death certificate section, but the Department of Health’s guidance recommends that providers “record the underlying terminal disease as the cause of death and mark the manner of death as ‘natural.'”

Federal funds. Under 42 U.S.C. 14402, no federally appropriated health care funds “may be used to provide any health care item or service furnished for the purpose of causing, or for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.” Medicare and the federal share of Medicaid do not pay for the medication or the visits devoted to the request. Patients should ask their physician and pharmacy about cost before beginning the process.

What Does This Mean for Your Estate Plan?

Less than people expect, and more than they realize.

Less, because medical aid in dying cannot be planned for in advance. Both statutes require the patient to ask, personally, while capable, close to death. A living will cannot request it. A health care proxy cannot request it. A person who loses capacity before making the request, as most people with dementia do long before a six-month prognosis, is not eligible. No document you sign today will produce a prescription later.

More, because the same documents matter enormously in every other end-of-life scenario, and because the request process itself runs through them. A health care representative may, at the patient’s request, communicate the patient’s decisions to providers. A patient in a facility that does not participate needs someone with authority to arrange a transfer. A patient who begins the process and then loses capacity, as happens, needs a health care agent with clear instructions about the treatment the patient does and does not want. And in the far more common case where a person’s decline does not meet the statute’s terms at all, the health care directive and the agent named in it are the only mechanism through which the person’s wishes about life-sustaining treatment are carried out. Our articles on who makes medical decisions without a health care proxy and what incapacity means explain how those documents are activated and what they can do.

Families should also know that the choice, where the law allows it, is protected from financial consequence. A will provision that punishes it is void, and a life insurer may not deny the claim. A person who might one day consider the option should not let those fears shape the decision or the estate plan.

Plan Well. Live Better.

End-of-life law has changed in the region, and the documents that carry a person’s wishes matter more, not less, for it. At Milvidskiy Law Group, we prepare health care directives that say what the client actually wants, name representatives who can carry it out, and explain how the law in each state treats the choices a patient and family may face. Learn more about our estate planning services.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Medical aid in dying is governed by detailed statutory procedures that only a treating physician can apply to a particular patient, and the law in this area is changing; New York’s statute took effect in August 2026 and its regulations may still be developing. The New Jersey and New York statutes, the New Jersey annual data reports, the Connecticut bill records, and the federal statute described were verified in September 2026 and should be confirmed before relying on them.