Please take this note as support for Melissa Keen as a J&D Judge in the 22d District. I have known Ms. Keen since she began practicing in Franklin County. She is an amazing attorney. She is knowledgeable, fair, and an amazing advocate for her clients. If children are involved in a case, regardless of who she represents, she keeps them in mind regarding any final outcome. She is competent and experienced in all areas of law conducted in J&D Court. She also has an amazing work ethic, from sending emails at 5am to going a great distance to investigate cases. However, she is still an involved and attentive mother to her own children. She would be an asset to the bench and I would be thrilled to see her on the bench. Thank you for your consideration. Sara A. Jamison, Esquire

I urge Committee members, including Democrats, to vote against SB280, the self-killing-with-medications bill. I am a lifelong Democrat but I have no interest in state-sponsored mechanisms making it easier for people to end their lives. We’ve all known people whose final days were marked by pain and distress. We shouldn’t be complacent about these things, but hastening death is not the answer. We do not need a self-killing-with-medications law in Virginia. Not that Senator Hashmi or other advocates use that wording. The older phrase “physician assisted suicide” was accurate, but confused legal authorities and life insurance companies. Now euphemisms like “medical assistance in dying” and “death with dignity” are often used instead. “Medical assistance in dying” sounds a lot like hospice or palliative care – but isn’t. “Death with dignity” implies that only a self-controlled death is compatible with living with dignity. Not true. Actually, almost all people with advanced disease maintain self-worth and dignity without overdosing. We should scale-up the availability of evidence-based interventions such as “Dignity Therapy” and high-quality palliative care, rather than buy into the idea that only hastening death preserves dignity. Some advocates refer to surveys that supposedly indicate a majority of people think they would want access to lethal overdoses. If that's true, let’s not jump to the conclusion that the Commonwealth should enable that. Rather, let’s infer that people do not trust their doctors or palliative specialists to help them adequately with their pain, anxiety, distress or self-perceptions they are a burden. We should address those real and perceived shortcomings, not help them rush toward death. I am glad that Virginia is working to reduce veteran suicide and improve access to mental health services. The Commonwealth should continue to pursue those goals, without sending the conflicting message that self-killing via overdose is state-sanctioned. I am also an expert in palliative care, and I know that much remains to be done to ensure that people with advanced disease are not filled with despair, fear, and suffering. We don’t need to legalize self-killing with medications in Virginia. Instead, we need more research, clinical innovation, education and advocacy to increase the quality of life for people with life-limiting diseases, and better reimbursement for palliative care providers. We don’t need purposeful overdoses in Virginia, but more careful stewardship of powerful medications such as opioids. We don’t need physicians and pharmacists to enable hastened deaths in Virginia; we need them to provide better care for people without hastening death. We do not need false dichotomies in Virginia that suggest one can have pain or dignity but not both. We do need a more mature conversation about maintaining our humanity and dignity throughout life and into death, even in the presence of pain and existential distress. There is much in life that we would prefer to avoid, such as pain and being a burden on our families. Let’s work together to minimize those things without asking medical professionals to help us end our lives prematurely. J. Brian Cassel, PhD Bon Air, Virginia