Compassion & Choices Releases Compelling New Video: Story of Fay Hoh Yin and Her Daughter, Monona Yin

Reason #10 in Campaign to "Pass Medical Aid in Dying NOW"

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Feb 12, 2020, 16:55 ET

ALBANY, N.Y., Feb. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Compassion & Choices today released a powerful new video featuring Fay Hoh Yin, an 87-year-old Brooklyn resident, battling incurable T-cell lymphoma, and her daughter, Monona Yin, who lives with her mother, urging New York lawmakers to pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act (A.2694/S.3947) NOW.

In addition, Monona is in Albany today to meet with members of the state Legislature to deliver the same urgent message that terminally ill New Yorkers cannot afford to wait for lawmakers to pass this compassionate bill.

The 3-minute version of the video can be seen bit.ly/FayYin1 and the 90-second version can be seen bit.ly/FayYin2.

"I'm very close to my family, my kids and whatever time I can buy with them, I'm perfectly willing to go through," Fay Hoh Yin said. "Most of us who are sick, we do not want to die. We want to live. You only come to that point where you want to die when life becomes unbearable." Fay says she feels "so strongly about it because I witnessed two bad deaths of my loved ones, my own mother, and a very good friend.

"When Monona visited my mother, my mother said to her, 'I want to die, I cannot die. I want to live, I cannot live.' That made such an impression on me."

Monona Yin said, "I'm really proud of my mom, because she is, for me, the embodiment of people who want to live, and it is important to her to have some sense that she doesn't have to suffer unnecessarily. I think every religion I've ever heard about could be boiled down to love, every single one, and kindness. I think this bill is a wonderful expression of that. It is an expression of faith."

Compassion & Choices Senior New York Campaign Director Corinne Carey said, "Fay doesn't want to suffer needlessly at life's inevitable end. Fay is urging New York lawmakers to pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act, to provide terminally ill adults with the option to get prescription medication they can take to die peacefully.

"Last spring, we lost my friend from law school, Buffalo attorney Bernadette Hoppe, who bravely fought for passage of this legislation in her final agonizing months and weeks of her life. We also lost acclaimed New York City filmmaker Barbara Hammer, who also urged lawmakers to pass this bill, even though she knew it would be too late for her to have this option to peacefully end her suffering. How many more Bernadettes, Barbaras and Fays do lawmakers need to hear from? The time to pass medical aid in dying for New Yorkers is NOW," Carey said.

In addition to Hoppe and Hammer, you can watch a new video that also features three other terminally ill New Yorkers, Miguel Carrasquillo, Youssef Cohen and Jay Kallio, who all died with needless suffering in 2016. All five of these brave New Yorkers died advocating for this compassionate legislation. Watch the video and read the script here.

New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act (A.2694/S.3947) with 55 legislative sponsors, including the chairs of both the Assembly and Senate Health committees, is supported by: New York State Academy of Family Physicians, League of Women Voters of New York State, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York State Public Health Association, StateWide Senior Action Council, Gay Men's Health Crisis, Harlem United, Latino Commission on AIDS, Latinos for Healthcare Equity, among many others. For more information: https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A02694&term=2019

To read the full stories behind Reasons 1-10, click here.

Compassion & Choices is the nation's oldest, largest and most active nonprofit organization committed to expanding and improving healthcare options at the end of life. Compassion & Choices New York is leading the campaign to give mentally capable, terminally ill New Yorkers the same legal option to request medical aid in dying that people in nine other states – including New York's neighbors, Vermont and New Jersey – as well as Washington, D.C. currently have. For more information, visit: CompassionAndChoices.org/NewYork.

Follow Compassion & Choices on Twitter and Facebook.

ICYMI:

The most recent Quinnipiac University Poll on medical aid in dying showed New York voters support it more than 2-1 margin (63-29 percent).
A survey of New York physicians conducted by Medscape/WebMD showed that 56 percent of doctors support medical aid in dying, increasing to 67 percent when informed about the legislation's safeguards.
The New York Academy of Family Physicians, which represents more than 6,000 physicians and medical students across the state, strongly supports medical aid in dying, after having opposed it.
A copy of the educational materials display recently in the LOB can be seen here.