West Virginia Puts Euthanasia on November Ballot

Voters in West Virginia will decide whether to enshrine a ban on euthanasia in the state’s constitution in November.
Lawmakers approved adding the measure to the November 5 ballot in the final hours of the legislative session. House Joint Resolution 28 proposes amending West Virginia’s constitution to prohibit any physician or health care provider from participating in the practice of “medically-assisted suicide, euthanasia or mercy killing.”
Delegate Chris Pritt, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, told WOWK-TV that the measure aims to “help protect some of the most vulnerable people in our state.”
“Those are individuals who have illnesses, that are going through a lot,” he said. “And this will protect them from being encouraged to commit suicide.”
Another co-sponsor, Republican Pat McGeehan, told Washington Watch in August that the amendment “places what’s already illegal in West Virginia into the state constitution for more security going forward. 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.”
Critics say the practice is already illegal in West Virginia, and that lawmakers should be voting on restoring abortion rights.
“The Republicans won’t let us vote on it because they know what the outcome will be, just like in every other state,” delegate Mike Pushkin, a Democrat, told WOWK. “So, instead, they put this meaningless constitutional amendment on that’s banning something that’s already banned.”
Newsweek contacted the lawmakers for comment via email.
Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted death in 1997. Nine other states and Washington, D.C., have followed suit, but only Vermont and Oregon allow any qualifying American to travel to their state for the practice.
A number of states, including Florida and Massachusetts, were considering legislation to legalize physician-assisted death in the 2024 legislative session. In Delaware, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow physicians to administer lethal drugs to terminally ill patients, but the legislation is awaiting Governor John Carney’s approval.
Polls have shown that most Americans support euthanasia.
Just over seven in 10 Americans believe doctors should be allowed by law “to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it,” according to a recent Gallup poll.
The same survey found that a slightly smaller majority support doctor-assisted suicide, which is used to describe patients ending their own lives with the aid of a physician. Sixty-six percent said they believe doctors should “be allowed by law to assist the patient to commit suicide” for terminal patients living in severe pain who request it.
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