Virginia Catholic bishops thank state lawmakers for stopping assisted suicide bills

Virginia’s two Catholic bishops have voiced their gratitude to lawmakers for stopping legislation that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide in the state. They have hailed the move as a crucial protection for the elderly, the disabled, and other vulnerable individuals.

Key Takeaways:

• A bill legalizing assisted suicide was advancing in the Virginia Senate before it was halted in the Senate Education and Health Committee.

• Opponents included the Medical Society of Virginia.

• Virginia bishops have expressed gratitude to lawmakers for stopping the legislation.

The Backstory:

Earlier this year, lawmakers in the Virginia Senate began advancing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. If passed, doctors would be allowed to prescribe lethal medication to patients who have been given a terminal diagnosis of six months or less to live, who are 18 or older, and have made two requests 15 days apart.

Though it was claimed that these were "severe enough guardrails" to stop any potential abuse, the bill still faced opposition, including from the Medical Society of Virginia.

“Our profession needs to stand with patients from cradle to grave,” Thomas Eppes, a family physician from Lynchburg and former president of the Medical Society of Virginia, said. “It’s only appropriate when hospice and palliative care is done, because that's aid in dying.”

On February 5, the Senate Education and Health Committee dismissed the bill in an 8-7 vote. Two Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans in voting against it, leading to its defeat. In the House, the Courts of Justice Committee shelved the bill until 2027 with a voice vote on February 11 preventing it from advancing during this session.

The Details:

In a joint statement published on February 18, 2026, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington and Bishop Barry C. Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond lauded members of key legislative committees in both chambers of the General Assembly for opting not to promote assisted suicide proposals this session.

“Human life is sacred and no one should ever be abandoned or discarded," the statement read. "Every suicide results in a tragic loss that can place families, friends, coworkers, and whole communities in long-term grief. Virginia should always seek to prevent suicide, and never engage in or promote suicide.”

The bishops added: 

We greatly appreciate all those who contacted their legislators to express their concerns, and we would like especially to thank those senators and delegates who advocated for vulnerable and underserved Virginians and their families.

Bishop Burbidge, who also chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, previously declared that assisted suicide policies can shape health care systems toward cost-cutting and away from comprehensive, life-affirming care.

“What we're seeing with various bills across our country is that we're getting to the point that — in certain situations and states — any medical professional who upholds the Hippocratic oath and implores the patient not to commit suicide, could be considered a felon,” Bishop Burbidge said, adding that a state like Oregon serves as an example for what can happen when suicide is promoted and seen as acceptable.

“In a state like Oregon, insurance companies deny medical coverage for terminally ill patients – but offer medically assisted suicide as an alternative. This is the path that leads to a culture of death, instead of a culture of life.”

The Bottom Line:

The Catholic Church denounces assisted suicide and euthanasia as grave moral wrongs, a teaching reiterated by the Second Vatican Council in the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” which singles out “euthanasia or willful self-destruction” among the “infamies” that breach human dignity and dishonor the Creator. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states that “intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (CCC 2324).

However, the Catholic Church differentiates between killing and the decision to do away with extraordinary measures in medical treatment, as long as the intention is not to cause death, but to accept it in its natural time.

For pro-life Catholics, that distinction is key to ensuring that authentic care at the end of life means presence, pain management, and respect for the person’s dignity — not a lethal prescription.​