The unbearable burden may still be worth bearing



Across Canada, Europe, and a growing number of U.S. states, assisted death is increasingly presented as relief from suffering. The Netherlands even uses “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement” as part of its legal standard for euthanasia.

Before lawmakers and physicians define suffering as unbearable, they should listen to someone who has borne it.

No one can bear a lifetime of suffering at once. But the shepherd gives grace for the next 24 hours.

In a recent interview with my longtime friend Joni Eareckson Tada, she addressed California’s End of Life Option Act.

“It’s almost like people who feel they live with unbearable suffering can just move to California and end it all,” she said.

“Unbearable” does a great deal of heavy lifting in that sentence.

A diving accident at 17 left Joni a quadriplegic. Now turning 77, she has endured two rounds of breast cancer and decades of chronic pain.

By almost any ordinary measure, Joni has endured what lawmakers increasingly describe as unbearable suffering. Yet she is still here. Still serving. Still living a life of substance and consequence.

She has written more than 60 books, reaches more than a million radio listeners, and leads a worldwide disability ministry. Few living Christian voices speak more clearly to those who suffer.

At the end of our interview, I asked whether she would ever retire.

“No.”

Joni cited Paul, torn between departing to be with Christ and remaining because others still needed him. Heaven was “far better,” but the work was unfinished.

She does not minimize pain. She rejects death as its most compassionate answer.

I have spent 40 years beside my wife, Gracie, who has endured 98 operations, bilateral amputations, and relentless pain.

Joni sees unbearable suffering from the wheelchair. I see it from beside the wheelchair.

She sees the suffering person think, “My life has become a burden.”

I see the caregiver think, “This burden is mine alone.”

My own recent cancer treatment brought a familiar question to the front row: Who will care for the person I love when I no longer can?

As assisted death spreads, vulnerable people can hear another question beneath the language of choice: Would everyone else be relieved if I were gone?

That is where compassion can become something darker.

RELATED: Euthanasia and the lie of the ‘good death’

Mininyx Doodle/iStock/Getty Images

Death can begin to look like the answer to suffering we fear, consequences we refuse to bear, or lives that ask more of us than we believe we can give.

The prevailing creed is autonomy: I alone decide what suffering I will endure and what another person’s life may require of me. The same logic appears in abortion: No life may demand more of me than I am willing to give.

But once death becomes an accepted answer to suffering, the judgment does not remain entirely private. Families, physicians, insurers, and institutions inevitably begin weighing burdens, costs, prognosis, and quality of life.

They may call that compassion. Christian compassion asks something harder.

Compassion enters suffering. It does not eliminate the sufferer.

If suffering is merely random, eliminating the sufferer can masquerade as mercy. But if a sovereign God rules over this world, suffering is never meaningless or beyond His reach.

Christianity rejects that counterfeit compassion. We entrust ourselves to Christ and enter the burdens of others.

Human worth is not conferred by health, independence, or usefulness. God made us in His image. Paul calls members of Christ’s body who appear weaker “indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:22).

But what sustains us when the pain does not end?

Joni’s answer is not willpower. Gracie’s answer is not optimism. They are sustained by Christ.

What does that look like?

No one can bear a lifetime of suffering all at once. But the shepherd gives grace for the next 24 hours. Psalm 23 does not promise a short valley. It promises we will not be abandoned within it.

Following Gracie’s 92nd operation, she returned to her hospital room tangled in tubes and IV lines. A young nursing assistant came in to check on her.

Still emerging from anesthesia, Gracie sensed something was wrong.

“How are you?” she whispered.

Tears filled the woman’s eyes as she confided that her marriage was in trouble.

Gracie threaded her hand through the lines and took the woman’s hand. Then she weakly quoted her friend Joni: “God permits what He hates to accomplish what He loves.”

Neither woman could see what God was doing. Neither believed He was doing nothing.

RELATED: The small mercy of a pressed pillowcase

zsv3207/iStock/Getty Images

The woman’s shoulders straightened, and she breathed a little easier.

Gracie was one beggar showing another where she had found bread.

We do not become someone else’s savior. Even from within our own anguish, we can help people catch their breath and point them to the Savior who understands their suffering and whose purposes extend beyond what we can explain.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul writes, “and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

That command applies to everyone who belongs to Christ. It cannot be outsourced.

If we say Christ is sufficient, visible obedience should follow.

Do we take Him at His word? If we do, how would anyone know?

They would see us entering the burdens of others.

Sometimes to sit. Sometimes to carry. At all times, to point to the Savior.

Nuns strong-armed into aiding assisted suicide? Just another battle in New York's war on religious freedom



New York has long styled itself as a national champion of tolerance and individual freedom. Yet when it comes to one of the oldest civil liberties in American life — the freedom to live according to one's conscience — the Empire State is moving in the opposite direction.

The 2026 Religious Liberty in the States index, a data-driven investigation published by the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, measures how hard state governments work to protect the basic right of conscience. New York, it seems, works overtime to achieve the exact opposite.

A genuinely civilized society accommodates honest differences rather than requiring total ideological agreement.

Dead last

The index measures the everyday points where state power clashes with religious conviction. Can a nurse refuse to assist in genetic counseling that conflicts with her faith? Can a Seventh-day Adventist opt out of mandatory union dues that finance causes he considers morally objectionable? Are citizens safe from religious bias at their local bank, state university, or public school board?

On those fundamental questions, New York performs worse than every other state in the nation. The latest edition places New York dead last — 50th out of 50.

The ranking reflects a governing philosophy that rejects religious liberty whenever it conflicts with progressive policy goals. Rather than treating conscience protections as a cornerstone of a pluralistic society, state leaders regard them as obstacles to be managed or even eliminated. With Zohran Mamdani and his political allies continuing to push an aggressive far-left agenda, protections for religious beliefs are increasingly treated as hazardous waste requiring active containment.

RELATED: Euthanasia and the lie of the 'good death'

Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images

Death drive

The ranking isn't merely academic. On the very day the report was released, four orders of Catholic nuns and several Catholic health care ministries were back in federal court challenging New York's assisted-suicide law, arguing that it would force them to violate their religious convictions by participating in the process of ending patients' lives.

Backed by the religious liberty legal group Becket, the plaintiffs in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. James had asked the court to block the law before it takes effect on Aug. 5. On Friday, they won an important early victory when New York agreed not to enforce the law against the ministries while the case proceeds. Without that protection, the plaintiffs argued, religious health care providers who refused to facilitate assisted suicide could face steep financial penalties, the loss of professional licenses, and even criminal prosecution.

At the same time the RLS rankings were published, four orders of Catholic nuns and several Catholic health care ministries filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York's newest assisted-suicide law. Their complaint centers on being forced to participate in ending human life in violation of their faith.

The most vulnerable

For generations, Catholic ministries throughout New York have cared for the most vulnerable. The Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, and the Little Sisters of the Poor have devoted decades to serving the sick, the elderly, and the dying. They believe that every human life has inherent dignity and requires loving care until the very end.

The state's legal arm operates with total disregard for that history. When the New York Court of Appeals decided Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany v. Serio in 2006, forcing religious employers to pay for prescription contraceptive coverage in their health plans, the court established a precedent that statutory mandates routinely override religious objections. The current assisted-suicide mandate pushes that line of warped logic into literal life-and-death territory.

The First Amendment exists precisely because early Americans recognized that government inevitably abuses power when it forces citizens to violate their deepest beliefs as the price of participating in public life. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, declaring that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." That principle laid the foundation for the American constitutional order.

Existential fight

That standard served the country remarkably well for over two centuries. Religious hospitals, schools, charities, adoption agencies, and social service organizations routinely fill massive gaps that state agencies lack the administrative capacity to manage. These groups strengthen their communities precisely because they stay true to their values. Forcing them to compromise those values undermines their work and ultimately leaves the most vulnerable with nowhere else to turn.

Supporters of New York's policies claim that eliminating religious exemptions promotes equality. But that is utter nonsense. Equality achieved through state coercion inevitably creates an oppressive, standardized public square. A genuinely civilized society accommodates honest differences rather than requiring total ideological agreement.

The assisted-suicide litigation now before the federal courts represents the latest collision in this existential fight. Government forces operating with zero regulatory pushback tend to expand their reach until an independent judiciary steps in to draw a hard line.

The expansion of state power at the expense of individual conscience should alarm every reader. Today's regulatory target is a collection of Catholic nuns running eldercare facilities. Tomorrow, the same administrative apparatus could target another faith community, another profession, or another belief system that conflicts with the prevailing political orthodoxy.

Religious liberty serves an essential purpose in the United States. It prevents state power from controlling what you think and how you live. Let's hope these sisters win their legal challenge. Because a win for them is a win for the everyday, decent American.

Canada’s Medical Assistance In Dying Program Is An Express Train To Hell

MAID eligibility is expected to expand on March 17, 2027, to allow medically assisted euthanasia for those who only suffer mental illness.

Priest breaks hip — now Canada apparently wants him dead



Rev. Lawrence Holland fell in his bathroom on Christmas Day and suffered a hip fracture. While the 79-year-old Catholic priest went to a nearby hospital in search of help, health care workers at the facility apparently had a final solution in mind: state-facilitated suicide.

Since the Canadian federal government under ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized medically assisted suicide nationwide in 2016, the so-called Medical Assistance in Dying program has been grossly liberalized.

'The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in.'

Initially, MAID applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them. Now, persons struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic hardship, PTSD, and other survivable issues appear to be fair game.

Next year, persons suffering solely from a mental illness will also be eligible.

MAID — which Canada's Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer boasted in October 2020 would, with expanded access, "result in a net reduction in health care costs for the provincial governments" — is now among the leading causes of death in Canada, accounting for over 5% of all deaths in Canada in 2024.

"It's a false compassion," Rev. Holland told the B.C. Catholic, the Archdiocese of Vancouver's biweekly publication.

The hobbled priest claimed that a doctor and a nurse at Vancouver General Hospital, directly affiliated with the British Columbia Ministry of Health, offered him MAID while he was recovering from his hip fracture, which is hardly a terminal condition. The priest further claimed that both medical professionals knew he is a Catholic priest.

"I think I was very shocked," said Holland. "It is such a sensitive subject."

Rev. Larry Lynn, pro-life chaplain for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, said, "This must surely be among the most appalling examples of Canada’s coercive and insensitive euthanasia regime."

RELATED: Euthanasia and the lie of the 'good death'

Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images

Although he was left "kind of silent" for a moment when the topic of assisted suicide was first apparently broached, Rev. Holland emphasized to the doctor that he, a Catholic priest, was morally opposed to the practice.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that direct euthanasia is "morally unacceptable"; that such actions constitute "a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator; and that "even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted."

The Catholic Church has long campaigned against assisted suicide.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops noted in 2023, for instance, that "euthanasia and assisted suicide (MAID) have always been, and will always be, morally unacceptable because they are affronts to human dignity and violations of natural and divine law."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has similarly and repeatedly condemned the practice, affirming that "we are dealing here with 'a violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity.'"

Just last month, Catholic bishops in New York published a guidebook reiterating the church's moral teaching "that this practice is objectively immoral and must be avoided, despite the false veil of compassion with which it is sold." The state was apparently in need of a reminder given its recent adoption of a law legalizing doctor-assisted suicide.

Even when dealing with a patient from a "faith community" that's opposed to MAID, the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers still recommends that Canadian health care professionals make the pitch for assisted suicide.

After informing his doctor that he was opposed to assisted suicide, Rev. Holland recalled the doctor explaining that he "just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not ... I knew the different services I had access to."

Rev. Holland told the B.C. Catholic that weeks later, a nurse also raised the matter of MAID with him.

A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which runs the hospital, told the B.C. Catholic that "staff may consider bringing up MAID based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so."

Staff are also "responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAID," added the spokesman.

Rev. Ronald Sequeria, the Catholic chaplain serving at Vancouver General Hospital, suggested there was something demonic about how MAID-pushers prey on suffering patients' despair — especially when suffering can be redemptive.

"The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in, in different personalities, and says, 'Do you want MAID? I don’t want people to suffer,'" said Rev. Sequeira.

"God makes us more pure, more strong, through the suffering when we offer it up," said the chaplain. "So we give hope — help them not to lose hope."

Rev. Holland drove home this point, stressing that enduring pain "can encourage growth."

"It can motivate you, it can open up new worlds, new vistas, new opportunities," added the priest.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

JB Pritzker Shares Newfound Love For Pope Leo After Blatantly Defying Him On Assisted Suicide Bill

'The Pope lifts his voice as part of a higher calling'

Euthanasia and the lie of the 'good death'



The term euthanasia literally means “good death.” The word is constructed from the Greek eu (good) and thanatos (death) — the same root that inspired the name of the Marvel villain Thanos, whose vision of “balance” required mass death.

The language itself tells you everything. Dress death up as “good,” and you can begin to sell it to failed socialist medical systems as a desirable cure-all.

Euthanasia, often called “doctor-assisted suicide,” has been thrust back into public view by developments in countries like Canada and Spain. What we are seeing is not compassionate medicine. It is the quiet normalization of despair.

A culture that cannot tell its weakest members, 'Your life is worth living,' will eventually tell them, 'Your death is preferable.'

Consider the case of Noelia Castillo in Spain.

Castillo, just 25 years old, had endured profound suffering. As a minor, she was in mental health care. As an adult, she was the victim of sexual assault multiple times. After a suicide attempt following the second assault, she was left paralyzed from the waist down. In that condition, she requested euthanasia.

Her father pleaded with the courts to deny the request, arguing that her mental health made such a decision unsound. The courts disagreed. The state approved her death.

A young woman, failed repeatedly by those entrusted to care for her, was ultimately offered death as the solution.

Even more troubling, British pianist James Rhodes publicly appealed to her to reconsider, offering to cover her medical costs. His plea underscores what the system refused to admit: Castillo did not need death; she needed care.

And Castillo herself admitted as much. In an interview, she essentially asked: If I cannot access health care, am I then entitled to access death care?

That question exposes the entire moral collapse. She was denied meaningful treatment in her socialist system but granted state-funded death as the solution to her suffering.

The Canadian example

If Spain reveals the logic of euthanasia, Canada demonstrates its trajectory. In Vancouver, Miriam Lancaster went to the emergency room for back pain. Instead of being treated, she was offered medically assisted suicide.

Death does cure back pain. It cures everything by eliminating the patient. Failed socialist medicine jumped at the chance to raise its cure statistics.

Thankfully, Lancaster refused. She later received proper treatment and went on to continue traveling the world. Had she accepted the offer, a solvable medical issue would have become a state-sanctioned death and she would have been “cared for” right into the grave.

Then there is the case of Jennyfer Hatch, a 37-year-old Canadian woman suffering from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a painful connective tissue disorder. Hatch became the face of a euthanasia promotional campaign titled "All Is Beauty," a three-minute film celebrating her final days before medically assisted death.

Let that sink in: a commercial for suicide.

And yet Hatch admitted privately that she chose euthanasia not because her condition was untreatable but because obtaining adequate medical care in Canada’s system was too difficult.

The myth of 'compassionate' systems

We have long been told by progressives that socialized medicine would deliver universal care, eliminate wait times, and treat every patient with dignity. Instead, it is increasingly offering a different solution: eliminate the patient.

The logic is brutally simple. If you cannot heal the sick, you can always reduce the number of sick people. These socialists saw the story of Thanos as a “how to.”

People have always been capable of taking their own lives. A system that merely facilitates suicide adds nothing of value. It does not heal; it does not restore; it simply institutionalizes despair. It admits it offers no meaning in life to those who suffer.

RELATED: The judgment behind the abortion numbers

DREW ANGERER/AFP/Getty Images

What is a good death?

At the heart of this debate is a deeper question: What do we mean by a good death?

For modern secular societies, the answer is increasingly clear: a good death is a painless one. It is an escape from suffering.

But this definition collapses under scrutiny.

First, it ignores the most basic philosophical question, one raised memorably by Hamlet: “What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?” If death is not the end, if judgment awaits, then euthanasia is not an escape but a gamble of the highest stakes. It the solution urged by demons looking forward to claiming another soul.

Second, it misunderstands the nature of a good life.

A life free from all pain is not a noble life. It is not the life we admire, nor the life we aspire to. Our stories, our heroes, and our deepest intuitions all tell us the same thing: Meaning is forged through suffering.

Imagine a hero who, one-third of the way through the story, says, “This is too hard. I think I’ll end my life to avoid the suffering ahead.” That is not a hero. It is a failure.

Suffering, rightly understood, is not meaningless. It teaches perseverance, discipline, and faith. It refines character.

As Scripture teaches, “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance …” (2 Peter 1:5-6).

A pain-free life is not the highest good. A life shaped by truth, virtue, and endurance aimed at eternal life of knowing God is our chief and highest good.

The real crisis

The rise of euthanasia is not ultimately about medicine. It is about worldview.

Societies that reject God are left with no ultimate purpose, no transcendent hope, and no reason to endure suffering. When affluence fails and suffering remains, the only consistent answer left is escape.

A culture that cannot tell its weakest members, “Your life is worth living,” will eventually tell them, “Your death is preferable.” From hating God, the culture naturally moves to hating neighbors. It is a moral collapse described in Romans 1:31. The people become heartless and ruthless.

A better hope

The answer to suffering is not death. It is redemption.

Only a worldview grounded in the reality of God can make sense of suffering without surrendering to it. Only Christ offers not merely relief from pain, but restoration, meaning, and eternal hope. He can heal our physical pain, but more importantly, he can forgive our sin and restore our communion with God.

The growing acceptance of euthanasia should force us to confront the emptiness of the alternatives.

If death is our only answer, then we have already lost. But if life has meaning, then suffering is not the end of the story.

And that is the difference between despair and hope.

More than 76,000 Canadians have been killed through MAID. One province has had enough.



The Canadian federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized medically assisted suicide nationwide in 2016.

As critics predicted, the state-facilitated suicide program — referred to as medical assistance in dying — was grossly liberalized in a short of period of time, maximizing both the number of accepted rationales and the number of those killed.

The province of Alberta appears keen to rein in Canada's sick experiment and protect its would-be victims, especially ahead of the Carney government's planned MAID eligibility expansion next year.

Background

In its first year, MAID offed 1,108 Canadians. That number tripled the following year, and by 2021, the number of Canadians killed by their government had climbed to over 10,000 in a single year.

'MAID should not be a substitute for robust health care.'

The Canadian government revealed in its latest MAID report that a total of 16,499 people were euthanized under the program in 2024, accounting for over 5% of all deaths in Canada that year. Of those euthanized, at least 4.4% nationally were not terminally ill. In Alberta, the number was 4.6%.

By the end of 2024, the number of Canadians who have died through MAID crested 76,000.

Originally, MAID applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them.

Within years, the country's eugenicist-founded health care system had given the green light to effectively execute those struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic hardship, PTSD, and other survivable issues.

RELATED: Canada’s conservative challenger Pierre Poilievre wins big on Joe Rogan's podcast

Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images

Persons suffering solely from a mental illness will be eligible for MAID beginning March 17, 2027.

Alberta takes action

Alberta Attorney General Mickey Amery, who is also the justice minister of the ruling United Conservative government, introduced legislation last month — the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act — that would "increase oversight, introduce necessary safeguards, and provide greater clarity around eligibility requirements for medical assistance in dying ... in the province."

The bill would, among other things, prohibit MAID in Alberta for: persons under 18; persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness; individuals lacking the capacity to make their own health care decisions; and advance requests.

It would also prohibit euthanasia for individuals whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable; restrict the display of MAID propaganda; empower health practitioners and institutions to refuse participation in the euthanasia regime; and bar Alberta health professionals from referring individuals for MAID eligibility assessments outside the province.

The legislation would also introduce penalties for doctors and nurses who violate the proposed provincial rules.

"Canada has the fastest growing death rates in the world when it comes to MAID. Far from being an option of last resort, MAID is now the fifth leading cause of death in Canada," Amery told the Alberta Legislature last week. "The country is currently projected to reach its 100,000th death by MAID in June, becoming the first nation in the modern era to measure its total assisted deaths in the six figures, more than the totals of any other jurisdiction with some form of legal, doctor-assisted death."

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a statement, "Those struggling with severe mental health challenges need treatment, compassion and support, not a path to end their life at what may be their lowest moment. In Alberta, a patient whose sole underlying condition is mental illness will not be eligible for MAID."

'The state refusing to fund and provide a killing service is the baseline.'

Rebecca Vachon, health program director for the Canadian think tank Cardus, said in a statement, "We support the adoption of these enhanced protections for Albertans and urge all legislators to work collaboratively to implement them."

While the Catholic Bishops of Alberta underscored that "the Church teaches that 'euthanasia and assisted suicide are always the wrong choice,'" they similarly characterized the bill as an important step in the right direction, stating, "A just society is one that protects the vulnerable, upholds the dignity of every person, and chooses to accompany them in times of illness and dying. The Alberta government is taking some significant steps that respect these necessary values."

Gabrielle Peters, a disabled writer and co-founder of Disability Filibuster, recently noted in a piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute,

The state refusing to fund and provide a killing service is the baseline we build from. Without that, there is simply no foundation. If disability — and only disability — makes one killable, then why would a state build the infrastructure, policies, and programs necessary to support disabled life? Particularly when one is an expense and the other represents considerable cost-saving?

Some euthanasia advocates have joined state media in framing the life-affirming legislation in negative terms.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, for instance, suggested that the legislation "would significantly restrict access to medical assistance in dying ... and undermine constitutionally protected rights."

Michael Trew, Alberta's former chief addiction and mental health officer, recently wrote that the bill "amounts to taking away choice from many who are fully competent" and that "this loss of choice INCREASES pain and suffering."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Spain Killed A 25-Year-Old Rape Victim And Harvested Her Organs

If Democrats regain unified control of U.S. federal government, pressure to federalize or normalize euthanasia will intensify.

Pope Leo Embraces Liberation Theology By Calling Health Itself A ‘Universal Right’

Pope Leo said that Pope Francis affirmed health is 'a universal right which means that access to health care services cannot be a privilege.'

We must resist a culture that redefines death as dignity



Just weeks after New York legalized physician-assisted suicide, a tragic case out of Canada should stop Americans cold.

Kiano Vafaeian died under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program. He was 26. Reporting suggests his family was not notified beforehand. After a severe car accident at 17 derailed his plans, he struggled with physical and mental health challenges. He also lived with Type 1 diabetes and lost vision in one eye.

Will we measure human worth by convenience, health, and achievement? Or will we defend human dignity from conception to natural death?

His family is devastated. His mother told reporters, “We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.” But one did.

And the system isn’t slowing down. Canada is on track to surpass 100,000 assisted-suicide deaths before the program reaches its 10-year anniversary — a staggering number for what was sold as a narrow policy for the terminally ill.

The left calls this “compassion.” But once a society treats life as conditional, moral boundaries blur fast.

Kiano’s mother issued a warning every lawmaker should hear: “We don't want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives.”

None of this should surprise us. A culture that treats abortion as the solution to inconvenience will eventually treat death the same way. The pro-life movement has warned for decades that when a society declares life disposable before birth, it becomes easier to declare it disposable after birth too.

Once suffering — even ordinary suffering — becomes the test of whether life is worth living, the list of “acceptable” deaths expands. The disabled. The depressed. The chronically ill. The elderly. Canada is already living that logic, and the United States is starting to flirt with it.

But life and hope don’t come from despair. They come from courage — the kind displayed by mothers like Kiano’s who refuse to let hardship write their children’s endings.

That courage still shows up every day. Last month, on the first day of the Lenten 40 Days for Life campaign, the first baby saved was on Long Island, New York. A mother arrived at an abortion facility intending to take abortion pills. After encountering volunteers peacefully praying outside, she chose life.

That decision points to a truth pro-lifers see constantly: Hope outweighs despair.

RELATED: The winning message is the one pro-lifers keep avoiding

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

History is full of people born into hardship who built families, communities, and civilizations. Our ancestors endured wars, poverty, disease, and loss — and still understood that life was not the problem to be solved.

Today, our culture sells a darker story. It tells young people suffering makes life meaningless. It tells women children are burdens. It tells the sick and elderly their worth depends on productivity and independence. It teaches people to fear dependence more than they fear death.

If difficulty becomes the standard for deciding who deserves to live — or even be born — eventually no one qualifies.

The West is already sliding into what sociologists call a “demographic winter”: collapsing birth rates, shrinking populations, and cultural exhaustion feeding a doom spiral. A civilization that stops believing life is a gift stops creating it — and starts finding reasons to end it.

That’s why assisted suicide isn’t just an end-of-life policy debate. It’s a civilizational question. Will we measure human worth by convenience, health, and achievement? Or will we defend human dignity from conception to natural death?

We cannot let Canada’s hopeless logic take root here. Nationally — and in every state — we must fight for life at every stage. We should work for fewer families grieving like Kiano’s and more families celebrating.

When life becomes conditional, no life is safe. When life is received as a gift, even in the hardest moments, hope wins.