Virginia lawmakers defeat medically assisted suicide bill

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia lawmakers on Monday defeated for another year legislation that would allow certain adults facing terminal illness to end their own lives with a self-administered controlled substance prescribed by a health care provider.

A House committee voted to carry the medically assisted suicide bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ghazala Hashmi over to the 2025 session, ending its chances this year.

Similar legislation failed in previous years. But Hashmi’s bill passed the Senate in February on a party-line vote after receiving an endorsement from U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat and former state senator who has been diagnosed with a terminal neurological disease.

Wexton and other supporters said the bill would extend compassion to people who are dying by giving them control over how their life ends.

The bill limited eligibility to mentally competent individuals 18 or older who have received a diagnosis that they have six months or less to live. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have passed similar legislation, Hashmi said Monday.

“This legislation allows an eligible individual the autonomy to decide when suffering becomes too great and to alleviate that suffering on their own terms by dying peacefully in their sleep should they choose,” she said in an earlier subcommittee hearing.

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