New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she plans to sign a measure to legalize medically assisted suicide for terminally ill patients under a deal reached with state legislative leaders.

The governor intends to sign the bill next year after working to add a series of "guardrails," she wrote in an op-ed in the Albany Times Union announcing her plans. The measure, approved by state lawmakers during their regulation session earlier this year, will go into effect six months after it is signed.

Hochul, who is Catholic, said she listened to New Yorkers in the "throes of pain and suffering," as well as their children, while also hearing out "individuals of many faiths who believe that deliberately shortening one’s life violates the sanctity of life."

"I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be," she wrote. "This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life."

NEW JERSEY'S MEDICALLY-ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW ONLY COVERS STATE RESIDENTS, APPEALS COURT RULES

New York will join a dozen other states and Washington, D.C., in adopting laws allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill adults, including Delaware and Illinois, which each approved legislation this year that will go into effect in 2026.

Several other countries, including Canada, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia and Colombia, have also legalized so-called death with dignity.

New York’s bill, dubbed the Medical Aid in Dying Act, requires a terminally ill person who is expected to die within six months to make a written request for life-ending drugs. Two witnesses must sign the request to ensure the patient is not being coerced, and the request would need to be approved by the patient's attending physician and a consulting physician.

The bill's sponsors and legislative leaders have agreed to add provisions to mandate that a medical doctor affirms that the person "truly had less than six months to live," along with confirmation from a psychologist or psychiatrist that the patient is capable of making the decision without being under duress.

"The Medical Aid in Dying Act will afford terminally ill New Yorkers the right to spend their final days not under sterile hospital lights but with sunlight streaming through their bedroom window," Hochul wrote.

"The right to spend their final days not hearing the droning hum of hospital machines but instead the laughter of their grandkids echoing in the next room. The right to tell their family they love them and be able to hear those precious words in return," she added.

Hochul said the bill will include a mandatory five-day waiting period in addition to a written and recorded oral request to "confirm free will is present." Outpatient facilities linked to religious hospitals may choose not to offer medically-assisted suicide.

The governor also said she wants the bill to only apply to New York residents. 

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that a similar law in New Jersey only covers state residents and that people from other jurisdictions cannot seek medical aid-in dying in the Garden State.

"Death brings good things to an end, but rarely neatly," U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote in the opinion. "Many terminally ill patients face a grim reality: imminent, painful death. Some may want to avert that suffering by enlisting a doctor’s help to end their own lives. New Jersey lets its residents make that choice—but only its residents."

Hochul said on Wednesday that supporting the New York bill was one of the toughest decisions she has made as governor.

DELAWARE'S ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL SIGNED INTO LAW, MAKING IT THE 11TH STATE WITH SUCH A STATUTE

"Who am I to deny you or your loved one what they’re begging for at the end of their life?" she said. "I couldn’t do that any longer."

The legislation was first introduced in 2016 but failed to receive approval for years as religious groups such as the New York State Catholic Conference sought to block the measure, arguing that it would devalue human life and undermine the physician’s role as a healer.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan and New York's bishops said in a statement after Hochul's announcement that her support for the bill "signals our government’s abandonment of its most vulnerable citizens, telling people who are sick or disabled that suicide in their case is not only acceptable, but is encouraged by our elected leaders."

But supporters of the legislation contended that it would reduce suffering for terminally ill people and allow them to die on their own terms.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, introduced legislation that would compel the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to create a public directory of federal government employees, including their salaries, job descriptions and other details. 

Ernst's introduction of the Where’s the Workforce At Listed by Duties and Office (Where’s WALDO) Act follows a report from conservative fiscal watchdog group Open The Books showing that the swamp has gotten bigger, richer and more secretive since 2020. Besides raking in massive paychecks, including close to 800,000 non-War Department employees who make $100,000 or more per year, hundreds of thousands of government workers' names and information were redacted from the information Open The Books was able to obtain for it's "Mapping The Swamp" report. 

"Like a twisted game of reverse Secret Santa, taxpayers are gifting paychecks to bureaucrats who remain anonymous," said Ernst. "The American people should not be forced to play ‘Where’s Waldo’ when it comes to figuring out where federal workers are during the workday. I will be embracing the Christmas spirit by creating a list, that anyone can check twice, to clearly state where every federal employee is and how much they are being paid."

Open The Books, a project of American Transparency, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan charitable organization, closely tracks government spending and released an expansive report last month that analyzed all publicly disclosed federal salaries for fiscal year 2024. The group found a total of 2.9 million civil service employees with a total payroll of $270 billion, plus an additional 30% for benefits.

DEPT OF ED SPENDING SOARED 749% DESPITE DOWNSIZING, NEW DOGE-INSPIRED INITIATIVE REVEALS

According to the data, while the total number of employees rose by 5% since 2020, payroll grew nearly five times as much. 

The current federal workforce is costing American taxpayers $673,000 per minute, $40.4 million per hour and just under $1 billion per day, according to Open The Books. This includes almost 1,000 workers who are making more than the president's $400,000 per year salary, 31,452 non-War Department federal employees who made more than every governor of all 50 states and 793,537 people making $100,000 or more. Those making $300,000 or more have seen an 84% increase since 2020, while there has similarly been an 82% increase in those earning $200,000 or more, the report points out. 

During Open The Book's investigation, the fiscal watchdog group also found that the names of 383,000 federal workers across 56 different agencies were redacted, amounting to a total of $38.3 billion in pay.

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"The Trump administration has a historic opportunity to bring transparency to the administrative state. While federal employees don't add as much to the debt as safety net programs or defense spending, they do cost us a billion dollars per day. Their performance for taxpayers can be the difference between efficient, effective services and a vicious cycle of administrative bloat," Open The Books CEO John Hart told Fox News Digital.

"Our investigators found far too many redactions and blind spots, including a vast ecosystem of contractors, that DOGE could have fixed. Accountability for taxpayers is impossible without real-time transparency. Making these disclosures a routine responsibility of OPM is an excellent step toward the real-time transparency our founders would have written into the Constitution had they been alive today."

When reached for comment, an OPM spokesperson told Fox News Digital that it "is proud to support" Ernst's new bill, describing the legislation's suggested measures as "common sense."

"Transparency and accountability in the federal workforce are essential to maintaining public trust," the spokesperson said. "Providing the public with clear, standardized information about federal positions, duties, and compensation while appropriately protecting employee privacy is an important part of good government."

Ernst's Where’s WALDO Act would include both direct employees of the government and federal contractors. Once the bill has passed, OPM will have 18 months to develop the directory. 

The directory, according to the bill, must include each worker's name, job title, description of duties, agency of employment, primary duty station, their annual rate of pay including bonuses, and the date at which the individual started working in their position.