Dear Friend,

Virginia lawmakers are moving quickly on legislation that would legalize assisted suicide by allowing doctors to prescribe drugs intended to end a patient’s life.

This follows recent efforts to place abortion on the ballot to be enshrined into law. Taken together, these developments signal a serious shift in how public policy in Virginia approaches the protection of human life.

As I have warned, when the government authorizes assisted suicide, it tells the sick, the elderly, and those who feel like a burden that their lives are no longer worth protecting.

This is not compassion.

It abandons people at the moment they most need protection.

Legalizing assisted suicide does not only threaten those who are already ill or elderly.

It makes every one of us more vulnerable.

The sick and the elderly may be first at risk, but once the law accepts assisted suicide, the protection owed to every human life is weakened.

On February 4, 2026, Dr. Thomas Eppes, a family physician from Lynchburg and former president of the Medical Society of Virginia, testified against this legislation in a Virginia Senate subcommittee.

He warned that the bill could undermine the patient-physician relationship, shift incentives in health care, and send a message to vulnerable patients that they are a burden.

As National Right to Life’s Director of Education and Research, Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., explains:

“The historic duty of medicine is to care for patients and to do no harm. Laws that involve physicians in intentionally ending life move medicine away from that foundation and place vulnerable patients at greater risk.”

When physicians themselves are urging lawmakers to reject assisted suicide, their warning must not be ignored.

Please contact your Virginia legislators today and urge them to oppose assisted suicide legislation (SB 359) by clicking here: 

Thank you for standing together to protect the most vulnerable.