West Virginia residents to consider making assisted dying unconstitutional

This election season, voters in West Virginia will consider a constitutional amendment to ban physician-assisted suicide. 

Joint Resolution 28, which passed 88 to 10 with similar margins in the state senate, will ask voters on November 5th whether to amend the state constitution to make physician-assisted suicide illegal. 

According to the text of the proposed Amendment 1, “No physician or health care provider in the State of West Virginia shall participate in the practice of medically-assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.” The amendment goes on to protect palliative care and other normal end-of-life care, while being explicit about assisted suicide. Should the measure pass, it would make West Virginia the first state to prohibit assisted suicide via constitutional amendment. 

Pro-life lawmakers lauded the measure as essential to protecting the rights of all West Virginians.

“It’s to help protect some of the most vulnerable people in our state. Those are individuals who have illnesses, that are going through a lot. And this will protect them from being encouraged to commit suicide,” bill co-sponsor Del. Chris Pritt told WOW-K TV. 

Opponents of the measure argued it distracted West Virginia from advancing a pro-abortion agenda.

“Restoring reproductive freedom, we should be voting on that. But the Republicans won’t let us vote on it because they know what the outcome will be, just like in every other state. So, instead, they put this meaningless Constitutional Amendment on that’s banning something that’s already banned,” Del. Mike Pushkin said. 

Co-sponsor Pat McGeehan disagrees. “The amendment places what’s already illegal in West Virginia into the state constitution for more security going forward,” he told Washington Watch, “It’s implicitly illegal in West Virginia, but we want to send a message against this sort of nihilistic euthanasia movement sweeping the western world.”

READ: Assisted suicide advocate disappointed more Californians aren’t dead

Physician-assisted suicide has been implemented in recent years in countries like Belgium, Australia, Spain, The Netherlands, and Canada – to name just a few examples. In almost all cases, the slippery slope of assisted suicide expands to threaten the most vulnerable in society. In Canada, an August report revealed that “medical aid in dying” or MAiD was the fifth most frequent cause of death in 2022. Assisted suicide is also legal in 10 U.S. states, including California, the District of Columbia, and Oregon —where assisted suicides are up 21% from 2022. 

McGeehan also expressed concern about the power imbalance between doctors and patients when it comes to physician-assisted suicide. “Doctors hold significant authority in our society, and their suggestion of assisted suicide can heavily influence vulnerable patients and makes it hard to ensure that such a decision is ever truly voluntary to begin with,” he said in an interview with EWTN’s Pro-life Weekly. 

Live Action News has previously reported how patients can feel pressured into abortions by doctors, especially after a positive screening for Down syndrome. Likewise, adults with conditions like spina bifida have been urged to end their lives. In Canada, where requests to die must be patient-driven, reports of patients being badgered to consider euthanasia have come to light. 

In any case, McGeehan told CNA that taking the question away from lawmakers and enshrining the right to a natural death in the state’s constitution is a question of protecting fundamental human rights from the threat of abuse.

“We cannot place decisions between who should die and who should not in the hands of politicians today… [That] places an enormous power in the hands of government officials, and it leads to arbitrary decisions that can have devastating consequences for our society.”

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