Clifton Perez, second from left, attends a recent rally in the state Capitol against the legalization of physician-assisted death.

Troy resident Clifton Perez, born legally blind, has spent his life blazing trails and fighting for the rights of people with disabilities.

In the late 1970s, for example, he was perhaps the first legally blind person to attend Hudson Valley Community College, where he joined the track team and became a sports photographer for the student newspaper. He also convinced the school to create an Office of Disabled Student Services.

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"When I took chemistry lab, they didn't know what to do," a laughing Perez told me.

Perez, 70, laughs and smiles a lot, and extols life's wonderfulness. But he turns serious when talking about what he regards as a looming threat to the disability community: a proposal that would legalize physician-assisted death in New York.

Such bills have been considered for over a decade, backed by passionate advocates who argue that allowing "medical aid in dying," as they prefer to call it, would show compassion for terminally ill patients who are suffering needlessly. They argue it's about choice and the freedom to determine one's end-of-life path.

Those arguments haven't succeeded in the state Legislature — until late last month, when a bill allowing physician-assisted death

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