May 8, 2026 | Articles
In their February 2025 paper titled “Government Economics of Expanding Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying to Vulnerable Populations and the Ethical Implications of Allowing the State to Control Death,” Western University researchers Uzair Jamil and Joshua M. Pearce analyzed the potential fiscal impact of expanding Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.¹They modeled government savings from extending MAiD to “net fiscal drain” groups, such as drug addicts, the homeless, the elderly, and people with mental illness. Special focus was placed on severe mental illness (whose expansion has been delayed by the Canadian government until 2027).
The researchers compared two scenarios through 2047:
Financial savings would mainly come from avoiding the healthcare costs for the mentally ill and those advanced in age with limited financial resources. Despite the large potential savings, the authors argue against expanding MAiD. They conclude that the profound ethical costs, including the devaluation of vulnerable lives, the massive expansion of state power, and long-term damage to societal prosperity, far outweigh any short-term financial benefits.
While we agree with their conclusion, that assisted suicide must be rejected, this conclusion can only be protected when it is grounded explicitly in the authority of Scripture. Apart from the self-attesting Triune God of the Bible, no moral framework can safeguard society from the expanding labyrinth of “lawful homicide”. Only from a biblical perspective, does every human life bear the image of God (Genesis 1:27), including those struggling with mental illness or suffering. Assisted death is never a solution. It directly violates the Sixth Commandment: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Legalizing it assaults the sanctity of life, invites divine judgment on a nation, and erodes the moral foundations needed for true prosperity. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Only by presupposing the absolute truth of God’s Word can we protect innocent life and restrain the cultural decay all around us. Anything less is a house built on sand.
Let’s look deeper into the economic and societal costs through the lens of a Christian worldview. Remember, it is the Christian worldview, which rejects euthanasia and suicide, that has produced the most prosperous countries in the history of the world, and this is not by accident. Rejecting the Christian worldview and the Imago Dei will have devastating social and economic implications.
The Rejection of the Creator-Creature Distinction
Canada’s planned 2027 expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) to those suffering mental illness as the sole qualifying condition is more than a policy error, it is an explicit rejection of the Creator-Creature distinction and open rebellion against the divine order of Genesis 1-3. In Genesis 1–2, God creates man in His image (Imago Dei) with intrinsic, unconditional dignity and a mandate to exercise dominion, procreate, and steward the earth through productive work. Genesis 3 records man’s rebellion: seduced by the serpent’s lie (“you will be like God”), humanity seizes autonomy, rejects God and decides to define good and evil, life and death, and the meaning of suffering without reference to the Creator. The result of rejecting God is the curse, which leads to death, toil, and fractured relationships. Yet because of God’s grace there is the promise of redemption (Genesis 3:15). MAiD for mental illness (and for all the other purported reasons) embodies this same ancient rebellion. The State now plays God, declaring certain lives “grievous and irremediable,” treating humans as expendable utilities rather than image-bearers. This severs the moral and spiritual roots that sustain a free-market economy: the sanctity of life, the rule of law, property rights grounded in dominion, trust, perseverance through suffering, and intergenerational hope. Without these foundations, societies and economies will not merely stagnate, they will collapse from within.
Here are five reasons why the promotion of MAiD in Canada will have devastating social and economic costs.
1. Rejection of the Creator-Creature Distinction and Intrinsic Human Dignity
By declaring severe mental illness “grievous and irremediable” and offering death as the solution, MAiD assigns conditional worth to individuals based on their suffering or economic usefulness. This directly denies the biblical truth of Genesis 1:26-28—that every human bears God’s image and possesses inherent dignity independent of utility. It repeats the rebellion of Genesis 3 by usurping God’s sovereign authority over life and suffering, replacing the Bible’s promise of a Redeemer and its call to endure the curse with a message of hopelessness.
Once dignity is no longer viewed as inherent in every person, society ceases investing in recovery and restoration. Instead, it places arbitrary value on individuals according to prevailing standards. The loss of an objective anchor for human worth, rooted in the imago Dei, hands arbitrary power to whoever is in control and can set the definitions, whether physicians, review panels, policymakers, or the tyranny of shifting public opinion. No one is safe from such overreach. “Grievous and irremediable” is an elastic category. Today it may be reserved for the most severe cases, but tomorrow it can stretch to include the severely depressed, those living in poverty, the elderly, or any condition whose healthcare costs outweigh the perceived economic or emotional return. Without the fixed reference point of the imago Dei, society no longer has a principled reason to protect the weak, the unproductive, or the inconvenient. In fact, it has no basis to protect anyone. The vulnerable are no longer seen as image-bearers entrusted to the community’s care; they become mere data points in a utilitarian ledger.
In the end, the logic that justifies offering death to the mentally ill today can, absent moral absolutes capable of drawing firm lines, justify withholding care or actively ending life for any group tomorrow whose continued existence is judged too costly or too uncomfortable for those in power. This echoes the very rebellion of Genesis 3, in which humanity seizes the authority to pronounce what is good and what is not.
2. Amplified Devaluation and Erosion of Creativity in the AI & Robotics Era
As artificial intelligence and robots displace more jobs, MAiD reinforces the false view of humans as mere economic units who can be discarded when they appear burdensome. This devalues the unique creative capacity of every person made in God’s image and undermines the dominion mandate of Genesis 1-2 to “subdue the earth” through ingenuity and responsible work. Instead of retraining workers, inventing moral solutions, or building new opportunities, the policy fosters cultural surrender, destroying the vision and determination required for genuine innovation and long-term cultural renewal.
3. Undermining Delayed Gratification and Capital Accumulation
MAiD reframes despair not as a difficult but redeemable season that builds character, but as a sufficient reason for immediate, permanent escape. This directly contradicts the Bible’s work ethic of persevering under the curse (Genesis 3:17-19) and pursuing education, saving, investing, family-building, and every other long-term project that generates lasting wealth. When death is presented as the quick fix, the everyday disciplines of hard work and future-oriented stewardship erode. Any short-term “healthcare savings” are dwarfed by the loss of the cultural habits that create genuine prosperity.
4. Weakening of Private Property Rights, Bodily Autonomy, and the Rule of Law.
When the state approves death for people who are mentally suffering, it quietly pressures the most vulnerable people and sets a dangerous example. It says the government, not the Creator, has the final say over a person’s body. A government that claims it can decide whether an innocent person may die will have no moral reason to stop itself from stealing your property, money, or business through rapacious taxation all under the banner of “fairness” or “equity.” The rights to own property and to control your own body rest on the truth that every person is made in the image of God and on the clear commands “You shall not steal” and “You shall not murder.” Take away that biblical foundation, and both of those rights quickly disappear and the State becomes Leviathan.
5. Risk of Generational Economic Stagnation and Societal Collapse.
These problems do not remain small, they grow from one generation to the next. Lower expectations about what humans can achieve, less trust between people, and a healthcare system that focuses on deathcare as a way to control costs all pass on a spirit of pessimism and decline. This slowly weakens the drive to innovate, it reduces the energy of a healthy society, and undercuts the strength to bounce back from hard times. A free-market economy is not an automatic, self-running machine. It is a personal and moral achievement rooted in the Bible’s teachings: respect for every person’s dignity and value, honesty, stewardship of creation, and living with hope and eternal purpose. Free markets thrive when people live by these timeless moral principles, not when we treat the economy as a cold, mechanical system. By undermining these foundations, expanding MAiD guarantees long-term national decline. No amount of short-term budget relief can replace the cultural and spiritual strength that makes real prosperity possible.
A Policy of False Compassion: Civilizational Suicide and Divine Judgement
When the architects of death peddle MAiD to the public as “compassion”, it is in reality, outright civilizational suicide. It does not relieve suffering, it accelerates the very spirit of rebellion that Genesis 3 warns will bring death and the curse of God upon a nation. Short-term budgetary healthcare savings for the State will be purchased at the catastrophic price of national strength, creativity, freedom, and most terrifying of all, the righteous judgment of the Triune God. Any society that turns its back on its Creator will discover too late that it has also demolished the moral foundations upon which its economy, its liberty, and it’s very survival depend. Canada’s steep social and economic collapse is no mystery; it is the inevitable fruit of our massive spiritual decline and brazen rejection of biblical truth. The exploding numbers and ever-widening scope of MAiD serve as one of the clearest and most damning barometers of a once-prosperous and free nation now racing toward the abyss.
Yet, we are not without hope. Our prayer is that God may have mercy on our land. Let the words of the prophet Isaiah reverberate in our hearts and minds. Isaiah 55:6-7; “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Footnotes
¹ Uzair Jamil and Joshua M. Pearce, “Government Economics of Expanding Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying to Vulnerable Populations and the Ethical Implications of Allowing the State to Control Death,” OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, published online February 28, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228251323299.
Bibliography
Jamil, Uzair, and Joshua M. Pearce. “Government Economics of Expanding Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying to Vulnerable Populations and the Ethical Implications of Allowing the State to Control Death.” OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228251323299.