By Sarah Holliday

Canada’s so-called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program isn’t just failing vulnerable people — it’s actively betraying them. Time and again, it delivers fresh, horrifying proof that euthanasia is not compassion, but a moral nightmare dressed as mercy. Yet far too many still look away. Why?

Mrs. B’s Swift and Tragic End

Consider an elderly woman in her 80s — known only as Mrs. B — who endured devastating complications after heart surgery. Sent home for palliative care under her husband’s watch, she initially expressed interest in MAiD. However, during her first formal assessment, she withdrew the request decisively, citing personal and religious convictions. She explicitly chose inpatient hospice or palliative sedation instead — options that honored her desire to live out her final days naturally.

Her husband, crushed by what he called “caregiver burnout” and frustrated by a denied hospice placement, refused to honor her decision. The very next day, he demanded a second assessment. In a horrifying rush, the new assessor dismissed the first practitioner’s explicit warnings: concerns about coercion, the patient’s sudden reversal, and the absence of any true medical emergency. A third virtual approval followed like a rubber stamp. Assessments conducted in her husband’s presence sealed her fate. That same evening, Mrs. B was euthanized — a grotesque, single-day execution against her clearly stated will.

An official Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee report exposed the litany of failures of this case: superficial scrutiny of her vulnerability, blatant disregard for manipulation and viable alternatives, and eroded safeguards that let external pressures extinguish an innocent life. Stripped to its essence, this is the brutal reality: Her husband — however burdened — effectively discarded his wife’s life because he no longer wanted the responsibility. The report itself concluded that the assisted suicide occurred “against her will.”

Kiano Vafaeian, 26: Diabetic, Blind, and Depressed

Now contrast this horror with 26-year-old Kiano Vafaeian, who actively sought MAiD. Battling Type 1 diabetes, blindness in at least one eye, and crushing depression, he was approved once — only to be saved by his mother’s passionate intervention. Margaret Marsilla launched a public campaign, secured mental health resources, and halted the process, granting him precious time to live.

But MAiD’s 2022 expansion to non-terminal chronic conditions reopened the door. Approved again and scheduled to be euthanized that September in Toronto, his mother once more successfully rallied support through petitions and media, even prompting her son’s doctor to withdraw. Years passed. Then, in late 2025, Vafaeian was approved yet again, this time in Vancouver by Dr. Ellen Wiebe, who has carried out over 400 executions by euthanasia. This final green light exploited a loophole, framing his torment as primarily physical (diabetes-related blindness) despite depression’s undeniable dominance. The young man, not even 30 years old, was euthanized on December 30, 2025.

His mother learned of his death only after it was done. Distraught, she decried the system’s failure to involve family or offer alternatives, accusing it of choosing “death over care.”

A Tapestry of Abuse, Manipulation, and Pseudo-Solutions

These are not isolated tragedies. Rather, they are but glimpses of a vast pattern of manipulation, where exhaustion, depression, or despair are met not with healthy support and comfort but with a swift path to death. Proponents frame assisted suicide as liberation — an “easy way out” when life becomes too much. They conveniently ignore that hardships can be overcome, that hope and help do exist. Yet death becomes the pseudo-solution sold as mercy. And tragically, too many accept it.

The pattern poisons even broader corners of society. Canadian actress Claire Brosseau, only 48, has fought manic depression, anxiety, substance abuse, chronic suicidal ideation, and more since childhood. She has appeared in dozens of films, survived multiple suicide attempts, and remains under multiple mental health specialists’ care. Denied MAiD in 2021 — because the program still excludes mental illness alone as a qualifying factor — she joined a lawsuit with Dying With Dignity Canada, claiming exclusion is “discriminatory” and violates her “right to die.” To this day, her case remains pending. Yet both her psychiatrists insist that she can improve — that they desperately want her to heal. Still, Brosseau feels it has all been “too much,” ready to abandon friends, family, and life itself.

The rot even extends to Canada’s prisons. Since 2018, at least 15 federal inmates have been euthanized via MAiD, with 67 applications overall and numbers climbing. The state now offers death as an “escape” for those already caged — preferring lethal injection over meaningful reform, rehabilitation, or humane care.

Euthanasia Is Not Mercy

When will we finally say, “Enough”?

The question is not whether these deaths — from an elderly woman coerced against her will, to a young man in his 20s whose depression was treatable, to prisoners offered death instead of redemption — constitute mercy. The reality screams otherwise: euthanasia is not compassion, but a perilous gateway to exploitation, coercion, and the erosion of human dignity. It transforms suffering into a justification for state-sanctioned killing, abandoning the vulnerable when they need protection most.

Canada’s MAiD regime reveals a society sliding toward moral collapse — one where death is normalized as a budget-friendly “solution,” where safeguards crumble under pressure and emotion, and where the sanctity of life is traded for convenience. The evidence piles up. The body count rises. The human toll devastates. So, why aren’t we demanding abolition now? Why aren’t we pouring resources into palliative care that comforts, mental health services that heal, disability support that dignifies, prison reform that redeems?

People are not disposable. Every person bears God’s image. We were created to be pursued — first by Him, then by one another. Not abandoned. Not euthanized. Not left alone in our brokenness. Those realities, dear reader, are devastating products of a fallen world. A world where real solutions are sidelined by the expansion of a program that kills the very people it claims to help. And Canada isn’t the only country fueling this industry of death. Other nations are following close behind. Canada just happens to be full of horrendous stories that show the true, ugly colors of euthanasia. Yet, even in America, at least 11 states have legalized some form of assisted suicide, with 10 others considering similar laws.

This is a fallen world’s cruel counterfeit of compassion, and it’s creeping in slowly, going unnoticed by many. Sin has fractured everything — our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our societies. We’re all guilty before a holy God, deserving judgment for our rebellion. But here is the astonishing good news: God did not abandon us to death. In His love, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life we could not live, to die on the cross bearing the penalty for our sins, and to rise again, conquering death itself. And in Christ, suffering finds meaning, dignity is restored, and eternal life is secured — not through ending life prematurely, but through trusting the One who gives life abundantly.

Real solutions exist. They demand effort, sacrifice, love, and truth. The gospel offers a better way: life, hope, redemption. We can still choose it — for ourselves, for the vulnerable, for our culture. But silence is complicity. The time to act is now, before more image-bearers are discarded in the name of “dignity.” Turn to Christ. Embrace the life only He gives. And fight against a world that seeks to destroy it.

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.