The Virginia Alliance Against Assisted Suicide
FACTS on ASSISTED SUICIDE:
40 states ban assisted suicide, including Virginia.
Efforts to legalize assisted suicide have been rejected repeatedly in many states, e.g., Maryland, Conn., Mass., and N.Y.
Legalizing assisted suicide...
Would subject people with disabilities, the elderly, the uninsured, and underserved communities to greater risk of coercion and abuse.
Delaware Governor vetoed his state’s assisted suicide bill.
On Sept. 20, 2024, Delaware Gov. John Carney (D) vetoed his state’s assisted suicide bill, citing the American Medical Association’s ongoing opposition.
Healthcare providers other than physicians making complex determinations.
It would allow healthcare providers other than physicians to make complex determinations of patient eligibility and prescribe lethal drugs—often without a second opinion.
Assisted suicide is a deadly, discriminatory and exploitive practice.
No patient—whether disabled, mentally ill, elderly, or otherwise—should ever be abandoned or discarded.
All should have access to quality medical and palliative care.
Every person potentially facing end of life or a serious and chronic condition should have access to quality medical and palliative care—instead of drugs to hasten their death.
When combined with the profit-driven healthcare system, assisted suicide creates a deadly mix.
In California and Oregon, insurance companies have denied lifesaving care but offered to cover experimental, cheap lethal drugs.
Doctors should provide care.
Doctors should provide care, not kill.
Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible.
AMA Code of Ethics: Opinion 5.7: Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.
List of designated capacity reviewers does not include psychiatrists.
This provision (part of the 2024 bill in Virginia) would bypass psychiatrists, thus diverting patients from being screened by them for depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, even though psychiatrists are the most qualified to make these assessments.
Assisted suicide laws require the doctor to falsify the patient’s death certificate.
Like these bills, assisted suicide laws require the doctor to falsify the patient’s death certificate by listing the cause of death as an underlying illness, NOT assisted suicide. (See SB 280, lines 161-165).
Eight Important Reasons to Oppose Legalization of Assisted Suicide
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Terminal prognoses are often wrong.
Individuals outlive their diagnoses by months and even years. Assisted suicide legislation leads people to give up on treatment and lose good years of their lives.