How does someone die well? Is a ‘good death’ found in the way a person stares down death, unflinching? Is it found in a person’s choice to die or not to die? Does it come from a life well-lived? Does a good death negate a bad life? Does a bad death negate a good life?
The recent shift for more access to physician-assisted death or medical assistance in death (MAID) is often called the “Death with Dignity” movement. And it is growing around the world.[1] According to their website, Death with Dignity’s mission “focuses on improving how people with terminal illness die.” And part of that desire comes from how horrible certain illnesses are for some and how current healthcare systems often add to their suffering.
Approaching MAID from a Christian perspective, it can be tempting to appreciate the movement’s apparent care and concern for people. Terminal, painful illnesses are one of the most visceral and heartbreaking aspects of the Fall, and seeking to end that pain is a worthwhile effort. However, does voluntarily ending a life end the pain? What if there is a deeper brokenness of which MAID is just a symptom?
To see this deeper brokenness, we’ll look at the current state of MAID. Next, we will look at one thread from now that stretches back to something more overtly sinister. Lastly, we will end with a Christian view toward these events. In short, those of us who profess a crucified Savior who has conquered death have a lot of good news to bring to this inner brokenness.
Elaine Plott Calabro’s September 2025 article “Canada is Killing Itself” in The Atlantic shows the quick evolution taking place in MAID policy. At the start, MAID in Canada was for “gravely ill” patients at the end of life. Then, it expanded to people suffering from serious chronic conditions but not facing imminent death. Now, in 2027, Canada expects to open it up to those suffering only from mental illnesses. And, as if it couldn’t go further, Canadian Parliament has even considered expanding MAID to “mature minors.” As of the time of Calabro’s article, MAID accounted for one in twenty deaths in Canada. One in twenty.
In the words of one physician in Calabro’s article, “The reality is that we were all just kind of making it up as we went along.” There was not much direction coming from the top down, it seemed. Parliament passed the legislation and confusion ensued. For example, the legislature left it entirely unclear when the right time for MAID had arrived. How close to death did a patient need to be? Canada’s Department of Justice “clarified” the question with the ambiguous phrase “a period of time that is not too remote.” It has been a rapid and horrifying evolution.
The common narrative behind the choice seems to be pain. The default depiction of a person seeking MAID is someone in immense pain at the end of their life, perhaps after battling some horrific disease, but that narrative does not align with the data. As emphasized by Ewan Goligher’s book How then Shall we Die?, the prevailing reason people seek MAID is because of loss of autonomy.[2] People feel as though they have lost control of their lives, that they are a burden on others, and that they are no longer able to act in the world as they once did. Further, that sentiment of autonomy as the highest end seems to be influencing the physicians facilitating MAID, as well. “Once you accept that people ought to have autonomy—once you accept that life is not sacred and something that can only be taken by God, a being I don’t believe in—then, if you are in that work, some of us have to go forward and say, ‘We’ll do it,’” said a family doctor quoted in Calabro’s article.
One quite personal example from the article is worth mentioning. A woman had attempted suicide by overdose and was hospitalized because of it. At the hospital, a clinician asked her if she had ever considered MAID, because it would be “peaceful.” The woman felt that the interaction confirmed her fear: she was a “burden” on the system, and it would be “reasonable” for her to die. The regional health authority where that hospital is located defended the clinician, saying that staff are required to “explore all available care options.” This woman had the horrifying experience of her deepest fears being echoed by the people who were supposed to care for her.
Words cannot do justice to how terrifying the whole article is, but it makes one thing crystal clear: being a burden and the loss of autonomy are the major reasons people feel that they should seek MAID. And in many ways, the process of MAID validates those feelings. MAID guilds death in the veneer of “dignity and choice.” However, this root of “a burden” has disturbing historical echoes in western society, echoes which speak to the current situation with MAID.
In most cases, equating a practice you disagree with to Nazism is, at best, intellectually lazy and, at worst, lying. However, this echo is just a matter of historical fact. The core motto of the Nazi eugenics program finds an echo in the modern MAID discussion.
The Nazi propagandists depicted certain individuals as a genetic and financial burden to society and a potential hazard to society’s health. Propaganda had to be written to convince the public of the “brutal mercy” that was needed. One poster from the Nazi Department of Racial Policy reads, “This person with a hereditary disease costs the community 60,000 Reichsmarks; fellow citizen, that’s your money too.” In films made for the public, the Reich Propaganda Ministry shows a clip of beds in an asylum with the caption “Life only as a burden.” And another clip that shows inmates at an asylum with the caption “Life without hope.” A lot of groundwork had to be done to convince the public that the eugenics and euthanasia program was a societal, genetic, and financial good. In the end, they deemed these individuals lebensunwertes Leben, “life unworthy of life.”
Autonomy has become the hallmark of lebenswertes Leben, “life worthy of life.” So, when autonomy is taken, life is taken. That deep resounding idea paired with the feeling of being a burden to others leaves people feeling utterly hopeless. And that combination is the most gut-wrenching thing about this entire situation. People are suffering and enduring an internal maelstrom of fears of unworthiness, burdensomeness, and hopelessness. And the very people who are supposed to help and seek to heal them are essentially saying, “You’re right.”
So, what is a Christian response to all of this? How can Christians speak into this mess, step in, and love people? We have true treasure to offer as an alternative to the iffy ethics and bad anthropology of the MAID movement.
First, we should not be afraid to say that autonomy is a good thing. God created mankind to have dominion over the earth. God made mankind to have rationality, to reason, to come to conclusions, and to act. However, God also made man dependent and finite, and it is good that we are dependent and finite. Ultimately, we are dependent on God, but we are also dependent on each other. “It is not good that man should be alone.” We can therefore confirm that autonomy is a good thing, but not ultimate. And we can show the beauty of humble dependence on both God and one another.
Second, we can embody that burdens are meant to be carried and shared, not hidden or eradicated. There are times when each of us will be a burden, but also other times when we will be able to carry others. To think that we will never burden anyone at any time is a form of pride that will take deep root in our hearts. And if it does, then on the day that we are a burden, our hearts won’t know what to do. Instead, we should exemplify what it means to be dependent on God’s provision through one another.
Lastly, we can offer hope. No other religion on the planet gets the privilege of having a Savior and God who knows death like our God. Ⲓn his death, Jesus showed that God is willing to go to the depths of death itself for his people. We don’t get to offer a “pie in the sky” Band-Aid to people’s pain, suffering, and loss of autonomy. The Bible is clear: death is an enemy. It is wrong, it is painful, it is an open mouth that swallows everything. But, at the same time, it is an enemy that has been defeated. Goligher points out that physicians who advocate for MAID are doing so under the conviction of what it is like to be dead. They simply do not know. But Jesus does. The church has confessed for centuries in the Apostle’s Creed that Jesus “descended to the dead.” Jesus does not only know what it is like to die, he knows what it is like to be dead. There is nowhere his people have gone that he has not also gone. And that was not the end of the story for him.
We get to tell people who think of themselves as burdens about the Lamb sitting on the throne right now who knows their suffering and promises to use it for their good. The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus still bears his scars. The Book of Revelation tells us that he is a lamb that looks “as though it had been slain,” (Revelation 5:6). We get to tell them about the whole Christ, including his body that he uses to minister to a hurting and broken world. We bear with one another’s burdens because it is only scratching at the surface of what Christ bore for us.
The world needs the Christian faith to speak into this, because the conversation is inherently a faith-driven conversation, regardless of whether proponents of MAID want to admit it. Think about the words of the family doctor from above: accept, ought, sacred, believe. Those are all words of faith. Those are all words that imply that something outside of ourselves and our senses has an impact on here and now. The author of Hebrews defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” (Heb. 11.1b). Does that not sound like the animating force behind MAID? The assurance that death is better than hardship, the conviction that death is preferable to the loss of autonomy.
Goligher, in his book, makes the point that MAID is an act of “secular faith.” “Put differently,” Goligher says, “you cannot decide whether it would be good to exit the box without forming some opinion as to what is outside the box.” At the end of the day, the doctor and the patient believe that whatever the current situation is, it is far worse than what is after death. We need Christians to thoughtfully engage with this topic and bring the riches of the Bible and Christian thought to the table. To say that these decisions need to be made based on science rather than faith is an untenable position. Everyone agrees that science cannot tell us what is after death, therefore the conversation is already being had “on faith.” Those who claim to have science in their corner are still acting on faith.
What does it mean to die well?
Is it simply to be able to choose how you die? It is hard to write about the phrase “death with dignity” at this point in 2026 and not think about the very public dying of former Senator Ben Sasse. At the time of this article, Sasse has five forms of cancer, his medicine makes it so he cannot grow skin, and he likely does not have long left to live. And despite all that, he describes what he has as a “call to die.” He is facing death and suffering with the confidence and dignity of a man who deeply knows a suffering-but-risen Jesus. He is not sugarcoating his suffering, nor is he attempting to spiritualize away his death. He’s simply living his dying corum Deo, before the face of God. And yet, the “death with dignity” movement—by its name and its goal—implies that his death is not one of dignity.
“Death is wicked. Death is evil. Death is not how it is supposed to be,” Sasse said in a 60 Minutes interview. “And me getting a cancer diagnosis, again, is pretty small on the grand scheme of things, but it is a touch of grace. Because it forces me to tell the truth. And the lie I want to tell myself is that I am the center of everything and I’m gonna be around forever and I can work harder and store up enough—that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can’t. So, I hate cancer, but I am also grateful for it.”
[1] 11 countries have MAID in some form, 3 have it de-criminalized, and several US states and DC have adopted it.
[2] According to two studies, it is between 95% and 97% of people that list it as a reason
