The Nevada legislature killed a bill on Friday that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide.
Assembly Bill 346 would have allowed terminally ill, mentally competent adults with a prognosis of six months or less to obtain lethal prescriptions from physicians or advanced practice registered nurses. The bill ultimately did not advance past a committee deadline on Friday, ending its chances of passing in the 2025 legislative session, Democrat Assemblymember Joe Dalia told News 4 Fox 11.
Dalia, who represents a district in Clark County, told the outlet he did not believe the measure would garner enough support in the state Senate to pass. He also cited Gov. Joe Lombardo’s (R) promise to veto such a measure. The bill did narrowly advance out of Assembly 23-19, but it was not assigned a committee for a hearing in the Senate.
“Our goal from day one was to bring a bipartisan bill that got through both houses in a position where the governor would be comfortable signing it. Coming into this deadline day, we just didn’t feel like we were going to get there and bridge that divide,” Dalia said.
Physician-assisted suicide, sometimes called “Death With Dignity” by proponents, is legal in several Democrat-run states, like California, Colorado, and Oregon.
Dalia said Democrats are “not deterred” and will “keep pressing forward.”
“Hopefully next session we can come back with a full head of steam and get this done,” he said.
According to Life News, a pro-life news outlet, similar proposals have been defeated in Nevada in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023. Gov. Lombardo notably vetoed the proposal in 2023.
The bill’s defeat marks the latest in a series of unsuccessful attempts to legalize assisted suicide in Nevada, with similar proposals failing in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023, the latter vetoed by Lombardo.
Sarah Davenport-Smith of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund told LifeNews, “All of the credit for this win goes to our NV Coalition and fellow advocates.”
The bill started out in the Assembly and the first hearing was through a non-traditional ad-hoc committee of hand-picked proponents of assisted suicide. The rules of public testimony and a fair hearing did not apply. AB 346 unfortunately was amended and passed the Assembly in a 23-19 vote. It moved to the traditional Senate Health and Human Services committee. Our NV Coalition and fellow advocates wasted no time in constantly meeting with key Senators, sending in emails, reaching outside of our Coalition to pull in more influence, and writing excellent op-eds and letters to the editor in various newspapers. Their work paid off! In the end, the votes were not even present in the Senate committee.
“Looking toward the future, we know that pro-assisted suicide advocates won’t be giving up, so we certainly won’t quit,” she added.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton
