New York has authorized medical aid in dying for certain terminally ill residents after Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on Friday permitting the practice for patients diagnosed with less than six months to live.

State officials said the statute includes safeguards designed to prevent pressure or abuse, while also protecting healthcare workers and religiously affiliated medical institutions from being compelled to participate in the process.

The measure establishes a required five-day interval between the time a physician issues a prescription and when it may be dispensed. It also mandates mental health assessments for individuals seeking the medication.

Eligibility under the law is limited to residents of New York.

“Our state will always stand firm in safeguarding New Yorkers’ freedoms and right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right for the terminally ill to peacefully and comfortably end their lives with dignity and compassion,” Hochul said in a statement.

The new policy marks a reversal from the state’s legal position nearly a decade ago. In 2017, New York’s Court of Appeals dismissed a case arguing that mentally competent, terminally ill patients were entitled to prescriptions for life-ending drugs, determining at the time that doctor-assisted suicide remained illegal.

With the signing of the bill, New York becomes the 13th state, along with the District of Columbia, to permit some form of assisted suicide. Oregon pioneered such legislation in 1994.

Advocacy organizations supporting access to assisted suicide praised the decision. Among them was End of Life Choices New York, whose executive director, Mandi Zucker, described the enactment as a “mile marker in the long and winding road towards fairness, choice, peace, and dignity for all of those watching loved ones struggle with a terminal illness.”

Zucker said the organization plans to launch a broad public education effort over the next six months to inform patients and families about the new law.