So each of us will explain ourselves to God. (Romans 14:12)
Compassion is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. But sometimes, good words like compassion are hijacked by lesser good ideas.
Currently, medical assistance (MAID) to die in 10 countries and 11 US states is legal, and the UK is currently in the process of maid law. Belgium and the Netherlands were the world’s pioneers, legalizing euthanasia in 2002, but Canada overtook them.
As of 2023, more than 60,000 Canadians had died from medical assistance.
Following a court ruling, Canadian legislation passed the Maid Bill in 2016. As of 2023, more than 60,000 Canadians had died like this. In Quebec, 7% of all deaths are from maids, the highest percentage in the world.
Rather than right-wing or religious publications, the September 2025 issue of the Atlantic includes a long journalistic exam for Canadian maids. Author Elaina Plott Calabro interviewed maid practitioners across Canada, travelling with experts for “delivery” with one provider helping people die. Calabro uses the term “clause” equally as most clinicians describe it.
Maids are usually perceived as enabling the end of a benevolent life for older adults with terminal illness and incurable pain. However, Calabro has associated another story. She talks about a man in his 30s who claimed that despite a 65% chance of survival, he was dying rather than seeking treatment for cancer. Another patient of the same age with unbearable but treatable neuralgia said the doctor “didn’t feel like it was a place to say no to them.” And two women whose decision to pursue death was affected by medical debt.
One maid provider associated the “terrifying” experience of lying on a mattress in a naked rental apartment, administering death to a woman whom she granted consent on her own. Conversely, another practitioner said he was a victim of a motorcycle accident, blind and relegated to a long-term care facility.
A professional assistance system supported by the general demand for individual autonomy, choice and control…
Calabro depicts a specialized aid system of aid backed by the general demand for personal autonomy, choice and management, but now offers a simple government-sanctioned life to all kinds of people who are not imminent in death.
This is the most gli paragraph of the article for me:
For some disabled citizens, the availability of supplementary deaths has led to doubts about how the healthcare providers themselves view them. In the fall of 2022, the 49-year-old Nova Scotia woman who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer with a disability, was ready for a life-saving mastectomy when members of the surgical team began a list of advance questions about her drugs.
The woman told me she suddenly and sharply noticed her body, a thin gown of tissue that did not close. “I felt like I should probably guess my decision again,” she recalls. “That was what I was thinking when I went down. When I woke up, it was the first thought in my head.”
Fifteen months later, when the woman returned for her second mastectomy, she was asked if she had noticed the maid again. Today, she wonders if she hadn’t been disabled yet, even a question would have been asked.
Every argument has two aspects and I will faithfully report both of them. “Maids in Canada” Substack has released its response to an Atlantic article. Calabro condemns sensationalism and hostile tone, while maids have challenged clear statements in Canada such as “no longer a novel and surprising event.”
Several interviewees in the article opposed the choice of comments and argue that Atlantic fact-checkers ignored their complaints. For example, Calabro described the expansion of maid eligibility as “expansion.”
For most readers of this blog, journalistic fairness conflicts are less interested in the maids that underlie ideology and how they respond. In that respect, this comment from a Western Canada maid provider to Calabro said, “If you accept that people should be autonomy, then accept that life is not sacred, something that I can capture, something I don’t believe in, if you’re doing that job, some of us should say, “We do it.” ”
My dignity is rooted in Christ within me. It’s a hope of glory.
In contrast, Joni Arkson Tada, who conducted an astonishing ministry during her 58 years of quadriplegia, claims that her dignity “is not coming from my ability to walk my hands, do my own food, cut my own food, or cut my own food.
We certainly should discuss the public policy level for the discriminatory and harmful consequences of legalizing fatal aid. But we should also openly confront in public discourse and private conversations, in God’s unrelated assumptions underlying the radical ideology of individual autonomy.
We have good reasons to believe that all humans are God’s creation and that we will give an explanation to him. True compassion helps people in pain find comfort in God rather than fleeing from him.
Personal confession
My personal attitude towards medicine can distort me into sympathy with my maid advocate. I fainted from a blood test and was hurt by colonoscopy, like one of the maid requests in the Calabro article. Based on what I heard about cancer treatment, I told my wife that once I was diagnosed, I would go directly to palliative care. So, if I get to that point, I can expect Nancy to tell me to reread her opinion!
It was originally featured in Bruce Baron’s “Kindly and Provocative Thoughts.” It was reissued with permission.
Bruce Baron has a variety of careers, including charismatic movements, Dominion theology, political campaigns and research into American public policy. From 2015, he volunteered for the World Evangelical Alliance as a Communications Advisor and was the executive editor of WEA’s Theological Journal from 2018-2024. He directs editorial services for the Association of Christian Scholars and supports global trust partners who seek to help Christian leaders around the world develop healthy patterns of governance, financial management and fundraising. Bruce writes the regular Subsurcack blog. This can be subscribed at https://brucebarron.substack.com.
