Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Colorado and Assisted Suicide: Guest Column

Nov 18, 2025John StonestreetEuthanasia and Assisted SuicideAssisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

In 2016, Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAiD. Less than a decade later, the practice accounts for one in 20 of all deaths in the country. How quickly the deadly practice expanded underscores how, anywhere it has been legalized, the “right to die” soon becomes the “duty to die.”

Assisted suicide is the definition of a slippery slope. Once passed, these laws always expand. In Canada, the law was recently amended to allow anyone with a mental illness, such as PTSD or depression, to obtain life-ending drugs. In the Netherlands, government surveys recently uncovered “thousands of cases” in which doctors “intentionally administered lethal injections to patients without a request,” including “children, the demented,” and “the mentally ill.”

It was also in 2016 that Colorado voters approved the End-of-life Options Act, to allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to adult residents with a so-called “terminal” diagnosis. Last year, the governor signed legislation to also allow some registered nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs and to reduce the waiting period from 15 to seven days. This year, a pair of lawsuits demonstrate just how slippery the slope is here, as well.

One of the pending lawsuits seeks to expand Colorado law even further. The euphemistically titled group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the “Hemlock Society,” is challenging the residency requirement, arguing that it is “discriminatory” to prevent out-of-state residents from receiving drugs for assisted suicide. If this lawsuit is successful, Colorado would become a “suicide tourism” destination, allowing individuals anywhere in the United States to “shop for death.”

The other Colorado lawsuit seeks to curb the disturbing trend of prescribing lethal doses to patients with severe eating disorders. Under the guise of “terminal anorexia,” some doctors claim that, due to long-term effects of malnutrition, there are patients who lack the will to live and “simply cannot continue the fight.”

However, according to Denver-based psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Westmoreland, anorexia is primarily a psychiatric condition and is treatable, not terminal. Even more, according to Dr. Westmoreland, “Patients suffering from extreme anorexia are not mentally healthy enough to make a decision with such dire consequences.”

Doctor-assisted death is always sold to the public with promises of safeguards, such as consent, but these safeguards are quickly compromised. So is the meaning of what is considered a “terminal” condition. Predictably, Colorado is following the same troubling global trends as everywhere else medicalized death has been legalized.

Behind the second lawsuit to challenge Colorado’s assisted-suicide law is a group of disability-rights advocates led by the Institute for Patients’ Rights. They claim the law inherently discriminates against people with disabilities by singling out individuals with disabilities or medical conditions who struggle with depression and other mental health issues, including suicidal ideation. Rather than offering mental health care and suicide prevention services, as it does for non-disabled people who express a wish to die, Colorado offers those with disabilities the “option” of killing themselves. In effect, Colorado law tells people with disabilities that their lives are less valuable and not worth preserving.

At the center of their case is the story of Jane Allen, a 29-year-old woman who struggled with anorexia. In the midst of her mental health crisis, a Colorado doctor diagnosed her with “terminal anorexia” and issued her a lethal prescription. Thankfully, Jane’s father intervened, and a court ordered the drugs removed from her possession, saving Jane’s life. Her health improved, and she was able to live independently before she tragically died of a heart condition a couple years later.

Jane’s case illustrates the problem with assisted-suicide laws like Colorado’s. These laws prey on the most vulnerable, poison family relationships, and corrupt the medical profession. Rather than embracing the call to heal, doctors become dispensers of death. Even worse, they are forced to decide whose life is worth living and whose isn’t. This is not “care.” Nor is it “medicine.”

Every single life has inherent, eternal value. Lawmakers and medical professionals cannot change what the Creator has already decided. Christians must be clear on what is true about human value.

The slope of medicalized killing is slippery indeed. The safeguards cannot hold. Christians must pray for and push for laws that recognize the central truth that every human being, from conception to natural death, is made in God’s image and worthy of life. More importantly, believers must be discipled in this essential and consequential doctrine so that the unjust taking of life will never be accepted as normal, even where it is made legal.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Ian Speir.

Less Than 1% of Assisted-Suicide Patients in Oregon Received a Psychiatric Evaluation Last Year

Nov 3, 2025Jerry CoxBioethics, Euthanasia and Assisted SuicideAssisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

Data from the State of Oregon shows that last year less than 1% of patients who received a prescription for physician-assisted suicide were referred for a psychiatric evaluation.

Oregon’s 1997 “Death With Dignity Act” legalized physician-assisted suicide in the state, and since then more than 3,200 people have received prescriptions for lethal drugs.

More than 90% of the patients who asked about assisted suicide in Oregon said they were concerned about losing their autonomy because of their illness and nearly 70% expressed worries about losing their dignity. Most did not express concerns about controlling their pain.

However, doctors in Oregon rarely refer these patients for psychiatric help. Patients who are lonely and feel like they are losing control over their lives need counseling and support — not a prescription for deadly drugs.

Assisted suicide is devastating for families, and it robs patients of compassionate care.

Just like abortion, euthanasia and assisted-suicide are murder, and they violate the sanctity of human life.

Being pro-life means believing innocent human life is sacred from conception until natural death.

That’s why Family Council helped defeat a very bad bill in 2019 that would have let doctors prescribe lethal drugs to patients in Arkansas and two bad end-of-life bills in 2021. These were flawed measures that fundamentally disrespected the right to life.

You can read assisted suicide data from the Oregon Health Authority here.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

The Demand for Death in Canada Grows: Guest Column

Sep 5, 2025John StonestreetEuthanasia and Assisted SuicideAssisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, assisted suicide is now so popular in Canada that doctors cannot keep up with the demand. Appropriately titled Canada is Killing Itself, the article described how Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAiD), passed just 10 years ago, now accounts for about one in 20 deaths in Canada. That number is more than the total number of combined deaths from Alzheimer’s and diabetes, and it surpasses many countries where assisted dying has been legal for far longer. The shortage of “care” is not due to a lack of interest from medical professionals. Doctors are in fact flocking to join what the Atlantic article called “the world’s fastest-growing euthanasia regime.”

For example, Dr. Stefanie Green, a founder of the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers, traded in her decades-long practice as a maternity doctor to end lives. Both kinds of medicine, she told The Atlantic, are “deliveries.” Some doctors have reported euthanizing hundreds of patients and yet, the demand exceeds the supply.

Canada’s Parliament legalized MAiD in 2016, promising increased autonomy and decreased suffering. Instead, the practice has corrupted medicine, threatened conscience rights, pressured the vulnerable, and expanded the culture of death. As the American Medical Association’s official opinion articulates, “Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.” That’s especially true in single-payer health care systems like Canada has. Eventually, the decision of who should live and who should die will be determined by financial realities, justified by arbitrary ideas about “quality of life.”

In fact, whenever and wherever it is legalized, the so-called “right” to die soon becomes a perceived “duty to die.” Though patients are promised “death with dignity” and an end to unnecessary suffering, patients consistently report not wanting to be “a burden” on friends or family. Many are convinced, as law and disability professor Theresia Degener described, “a life with disability is automatically less worth living and that in some cases, death is preferable.” 

Despite what Canadian officials have claimed, there are no effective “safeguards.” A report last year in the New Atlantis noted hundreds of serious violations of regulations in just the Ontario province, and none have been reported to law enforcement. Although Ontario Chief Coroner Dirk Huyer boasted, “Every case is reported. Everybody has scrutiny on all these cases,” physician whistleblowers identified over 400 “issues with compliance.” These range from patients killed who were not capable of consent to communication breakdowns with pharmacists providing the deadly prescriptions. For example, only 61% of physicians notify pharmacists about the purpose of the euthanasia medications prior to dispensation, as required.

Even more troubling are reported cases of providers expediting euthanizing drugs to patients sooner than the legally required 10-day waiting period. In one case, euthanasia provider Dr. Eugenie Tjan administered the wrong drugs. When the patient did not die, the doctor had to administer different drugs to complete the assisted suicide. Huyer failed to report this, eventually admitting this was a “blatant” case of violating Canadian laws: “The family and the deceased person suffered tremendously.”

Also, according to the report, about one quarter of all euthanasia providers in Ontario were notified by the coroner’s office of a compliance issue in 2023 alone. National law states that all reports should lead to criminal investigations, but Huyer failed to report even one. Instead, he determined that all issues in question required only an “informal conversation” with the practitioner. Dr. Tjan, for example, received an email of warning and remains licensed.

To call this a “slippery slope” is an understatement. MAiD began as a practice limited to gravely ill patients at the end of life. The law has already expanded to include people suffering from serious medical conditions but not facing imminent death. MAiD will soon be available to those suffering only from mental illness. Parliament has also recommended granting access to minors.

Assisted suicide is not a medical practice. Rather, it is a practice that corrupts medicine, risks abuse, and erodes public trust. The best-case scenario at this point is that Canada becomes a deterrent for the rest of the world, and that Christians there demonstrate courage in how they live and how they die.