During school breaks, I used to shadow my mom, a physical therapist. I followed her around the rehabilitation center as she cared for adults with a wide variety of disabilities and ailments.
I learned from a young age that all people had value and worth, as the Bible teaches us (Gen. 1:27). I also developed a deep love for all people by watching my dad’s family care for my uncle and several cousins who had developmental disabilities. After high school, it seemed natural to follow my mom’s footsteps and become an occupational therapist.
I was drawn to helping people be able to return to caring for themselves, to work, and to all the activities they enjoyed doing prior to suffering from an illness, accident, or whatever was interfering with their independence.
Recently, news came out of Canada highlighting the increase in “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID). Somewhere between April to June of this year, Canada will hit about 100,000 deaths from MAID. This is just under the number of Canadians that died in WWI and WWII.
According to research, MAID was first legalized in June 2016, and an adult over the age of 18 was required to have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” that causes “enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable” with a foreseeable death.
In simple terms, the person requesting MAID had to have a terminal illness. In 2021, however, this bill was updated to remove the requirement for a person’s natural death to be foreseeable.
This bill allowed essentially any person who had a physical condition to request MAID. Some safeguards that were originally required in 2016 were removed, including the 10-day wait period after requesting MAID. Effectively, you can now receive approval for MAID and die on the same day. In March 2027, the expanded bill will allow adults diagnosed with a mental illness to be approved for MAID.
Especially alarming is the conversation and consideration to expand MAID to include mature minors. A mature minor is “a child or teen that is determined to be capable of making this decision to request MAID.” With this unethical proposal, parents would not be consulted or required to give consent for their child’s death via MAID.
The Netherlands has a minimum age of 12 years old for MAID and Belgium has no age limit to request MAID. As MAID continues to expand across Canada, people with disabilities, veterans and older adults are being pressured to end their lives. Viewed as a burden on the socialized health care system, it is common for these vulnerable groups to be offered MAID in lieu of medical intervention or support services that will enable them to remain independent in the community.
The United States is not immune from MAID. To date, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Delaware, Maine, New Mexico and Vermont have legalized medical assistance in dying.
States considering legalizing MAID this year include: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin. Both Oregon and Vermont do not have residency requirements to qualify to receive MAID.
How should Christians view what is termed medical assistance in dying? The term MAID has been selected to sanitize what it is. Medical assistance in dying is taking the life of an innocent person. Exodus 20:13 says, “You shall not murder.” While those who promote and support MAID use terminology such as death with dignity, empathy and compassion, the Bible is clear that we are not to take the life of an innocent person.
We should seek to protect human life, not destroy it. Every human life has dignity as an image-bearer of God (Gen. 1:26–27). It is part of God’s design that humans flourish through the entire lifespan and that we seek to promote this human flourishing (Liederbach, 2021).
Human life should be guarded and protected. God is the One who knows the exact number of years, months, and days that we have. Psalms 139:16 tells us, “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” The Bible is clear—it is not up to us to determine the length of our life or that of anyone else.
On a recent trip to Israel, during the solemnity of touring The Holocaust Museum, I learned that Hitler ordered the Euthanasia Program in October of 1939. He ordered the killing of people with mental or physical disabilities who were determined to be unworthy of living. More than 250,000 people with disabilities were killed in Germany between 1939 to 1945. I was overcome with emotion looking over the details of this program. I could not help but think of people I have met who have physical and mental disabilities.
We wonder how that could ever happen, yet we are witnessing a similar occurrence in Canada. I cannot help but wonder what would happen to my two uncles today. Eddie and Jody, born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with a degenerative nerve disease. They both lived their life to the fullest until the Lord took them home to be with Him. Would they be cared for today? Would they have been able to live until the Lord decided to take them home? I grieve for my native Canada. I grieve for the vulnerable who are being denied care and being offered death.
How will we as believers respond? How will the Church respond? Will we guard and protect the entire lifespan of every human? Will we take a stand against the progression of MAID laws in the United States? It is time for Christians and all people of good will to speak up for the vulnerable—we must protect this attack on life and to promote the dignity and value of all human life.
Editor’s Note: Sadler used the following academic sources in this article.
Liederbach, Mark, and Evan Lenow. 2021. Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing.
