O, Canada! What are you considering… and doing?
In a fully devastating evaluation from The Atlantic, the headline stated all of it: “Canada Is Killing Itself.” And sure, fairly actually. In 2016, Canada’s Parliament gave its residents the suitable to die, and now, medical doctors are struggling to maintain up with the demand. Referred to as MAID (Medical Help in Dying), it set in movement what now accounts for one in 20 deaths in Canada. That’s greater than Alzheimer’s and diabetes mixed. In Quebec, greater than 7% of all deaths are by euthanasia, giving it the very best fee of any jurisdiction on the planet. Canada now surpasses nations reminiscent of Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the place assisted dying has been authorized for for much longer.
In a basic case of a “slippery slope,” Elaina Plott Calabro writes:
MAID started as a apply restricted to gravely ailing sufferers who had been already on the finish of life. The regulation was then expanded to incorporate individuals who had been affected by severe medical situations however not going through imminent loss of life. In two years, MAID will probably be made accessible to these struggling solely from psychological sickness. Parliament has additionally advisable granting entry to minors.
However then she quips, “It doesn’t really feel fairly proper to say that Canada slid down a slippery slope, as a result of warding off the slope by no means appears to have been the precedence.” Calabro provides that what’s on the coronary heart of the explosion is the idea of “affected person autonomy.” It’s regular for a doctor to do what they’ll to honor a affected person’s needs, however in Canada it has change into the engine of a runaway practice. It has allowed Canada’s MAID advocates “to push for growth in phrases that brook no argument, refracted by the language of equality, entry, and compassion.” Docs, a few of whom have euthanized a whole lot of sufferers, name them “deliveries,” borrowing from maternity ward terminology.
Oh, and the Quebec Faculty of Physicians has raised the potential for legalizing euthanasia for infants born with “extreme malformations,” a uncommon apply presently authorized within the Netherlands—the primary nation to undertake it since Nazi Germany did so in 1939. MAID for psychological sickness is about to change into authorized in Canada in 2027. The Canadian Parliament’s Particular Joint Committee on Medical Help in Dying has formally advisable increasing MAID to incorporate mature minors. It could require “parental session,” however not “parental consent.”
“That is the story of an ideology in movement,” writes Calabro, “of what occurs when a nation enshrines a proper earlier than reckoning with the totality of its logic. If autonomy in loss of life is sacrosanct, is there anybody who shouldn’t be helped to die?” As one household doctor on Vancouver Island put it, “When you settle for that folks should have autonomy – when you settle for that life isn’t sacred and one thing that may solely be taken by God, a being I don’t imagine in – then, in the event you’re in that work, a few of us need to go ahead and say, ‘Properly do it.’”
The Christian perspective on that is unequivocal. The sanctity of human life is rooted in creation itself. In Genesis, the Bible says: “So God created human beings in his personal picture. Within the picture of God he created them; female and male he created them” (Genesis 1:27, NLT). To be made within the picture of God signifies that when God made us, He put one thing of Himself in us. He gave us a spark of the everlasting, a portion of the Divine.
He gave us a soul.
And that soul is what permits us to do what solely people can do, which is to be in a relationship with the dwelling God. That is decisive to who and what we’re. Nothing else in all creation carries the standing, nor holds the place, of bearing the picture of God—not vegetation, not animals, not reptiles, not bugs, not fish, not birds. In relation to people, we alone had been made within the picture of God, with a soul, in a position to answer and relate with the dwelling God.
That’s why each single human being – each single one – has completely incalculable worth. Why? They’re image-bearers. It doesn’t matter what coloration their pores and skin is, how a lot cash they make, the place they reside on the planet, or the state of their psychological or bodily functionality. Each human being is of incalculable worth and significance as a result of they had been made within the picture of God. They bear the picture of God. That’s what offers human life its sanctity.
It’s why we are able to say slavery is unsuitable.
Human trafficking is unsuitable.
Racism is unsuitable.
Abuse and bullying are unsuitable.
Something that may demean the worth and price of a human being is unsuitable.
However the final affront towards the sanctity of human life, towards somebody who bears the picture of God, is the ending of their life by homicide. Taking it upon ourselves to finish a life is the last word act of defiance towards God, for all times is His and His alone to offer and take.
It doesn’t matter what the standard of life is for that particular person.
It doesn’t matter what the price of their life will probably be to society.
It doesn’t matter how productive they’re, how good they’re, how engaging they’re.
It doesn’t matter whether or not we like them or if they’ve angered us or offended us.
All human beings have infinite value as a result of they’re made within the picture of God. And the taking of a life – any life – is displaying contempt for God and His picture. Life is sacred. It isn’t ours to do with as we please.
Even when we kill ourselves.
Solely God can finish it or direct its ending.
Make no mistake. Lively euthanasia is assisted suicide. This isn’t about whether or not to make use of extraordinary means to increase the method of dying when there isn’t any hope for extending life, what is usually referred to as passive euthanasia. Only a few Christian ethicists would problem that selection.
(They’d, nevertheless, say that meals and water will not be extraordinary efforts. These are primary wants for anybody dwelling.)
What we’re speaking about is the direct killing of a affected person as a result of a illness could also be terminal, or the withholding of help that may extend life in a substantive approach merely to keep away from ache or problem. It’s each bit as a lot the taking of a human life as every other kind as a result of it’s not our life to take nor our resolution to make. It’s not a matter of private rights, as we’ve got no rights over the life that has been given to us.
Compassion will be poured out on people who find themselves struggling, and we are able to and will stand with them, pray for them, and encourage them to benefit from all the pieces that’s accessible when it comes to ache administration and hospice care, however the taking of a life for the sake of the standard of life is towards the sanctity of life. As a result of sure, Canada,
… there’s a God.
James Emery White
Sources
Elaina Plott Calabro, “Canada Is Killing Itself, The Atlantic, August 11, 2025, learn on-line.
Mark Silk, “Why has Canada embraced euthanasia?” Faith Information Service, August 15, 2025, learn on-line.
