Guest Column: In Canada, ‘Right’ to Die Becomes Recommendation to Die
Last year, the Canadian government sanctioned the killing of 13,241 people by the euphemistically named Medical Assistance in Dying. MAiD accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada in 2022 and is the fifth leading cause of death in that country.
The slide down this slippery slope began by first legalizing doctor-assisted suicide for people facing “imminent death” and then expanding it step by step until it was available to virtually anyone who asks for it.
In fact, now Canadians don’t even need to ask. Doctors and nurse practitioners there have been told they have a professional obligation to bring up the option of MAiD to any patients considered “eligible.” That kind of suggestion can sound an awful lot like a recommendation to someone struggling with whether or not to live.
These numbers are just going up, and they will until enough Canadians refuse to participate in Canada’s culture of death.
Copyright 2023 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
One Solitary Life
In 1926, Dr. James Allan Francis wrote a short essay titled, “One Solitary Life.” Please join me in pondering this original version of those simple words about the Savior of the World.
One Solitary Life
A child is born in an obscure village. He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, proclaiming a message and living a life.
He never writes a book. He never holds an office. He never raises an army. He never has a family of his own. He never owns a home. He never goes to college. He never travels two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
He gathers a little group of friends about him and teaches them his way of life. While still a young man, the tide of popular feeling turns against him. One denies him; another betrays him.
He is turned over to his enemies. He goes through the mockery of a trial; he is nailed to a cross between two thieves, and when dead is laid in a borrowed grave by the kindness of a friend. Those are the facts of his human life.
He rises from the dead. Today we look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, what kind of trail has he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned are absolutely picayune [worthless] in their influence on mankind compared with that of this one solitary life.
From all of us at Family Council, merry Christmas! As we enjoy this wonderful time of year, may we all take time to reflect on the true reason we celebrate Christmas: The birth of our savior, Jesus Christ.