Over the long weekend, New York Governor Kathy Hochul posted on social media about the Founding of America, as people tend to do on Independence Day weekend. She said that she was “reflecting on the values we hold dear as New Yorkers and as Americans.”

On this day in 1776, our founders set out on a path toward liberty and justice for all.

Liberty and justice. To live life. Created equal. With value and dignity. Even when born with a disability that promises a life of challenges beyond the norm. Even when a breathing tube detaches and puts you in a coma.

I’m thinking of one person in particular. You may have heard his name mentioned here, in the New York Post, in the Free Press, on social media.

Dovie Eisner wrote a piece for Unherd — “New York’s euthanasia bill targets me: Suicide-by-doctor cheapens disabled lives” — subsequently picked up by some of those other outlets imploring New York to beware of doctor-assisted suicide. It changes medicine.  The very weekend it appeared in the NYPost in mid-May, he suffered a medical crisis that has had him in a coma ever since.

Dovie has been in a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn. Hold a press event in a hospital, talking about your concern for the vulnerable — how, at best, there are too many unknowns that are dangerous to those who most often cannot speak for themselves. Dovie has advocates in his loving, devoted, self-sacrificing parents. Not everyone has them.

I pray Kathy Hochul has read Dovie’s words. I hope she knows he has been in a coma shortly after pouring out his heart, in what I think he had in mind would be the start of him using his voice in the public square for human rights and freedom.

I pray she vetoes the assisted-suicide legislation both houses in Albany have passed.

Do it in defense of the most vulnerable. Do it for the voiceless. Do it for the do-not-harm fundamental principle for doctors in health care. And, yes, please, do it for your constituent, Dovie Eisner. Look him in the eyes in the picture a friend took outside St. Vincent Ferrer, his favorite Catholic Church in New York, holding a copy of the Post with his oped in it. See not only his life, but all those he was also pleading for in asking you to reject assisted suicide. 

We started a nation to defend life. This isn’t about warring political ideologies. It’s about humanity.