Euthanasia

Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide

The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide

Disturbing Report Tells Story of Toddler Euthanized in the Netherlands

As Euthanasia Expands in the West, Here’s How Christians Can Respond

Anglican Church of Canada Launches ‘Pastoral Liturgy’ for Medically-Assisted Suicide

Canada to Report Killing Over 100,000 People With Physician-Assisted Suicide

Photo from Shutterstock.

Oct 05 2026

Disturbing Report Tells Story of Toddler Euthanized in the Netherlands

The doctor who euthanized a disabled toddler in the Netherlands last year was cleared of all wrongdoing in September after an official review found he’d exercised “reasonable care” in ending the child’s life.

The harrowing report, which the “Netherland’s Review Committee on Late-Term Abortion and Termination of Life of Neonates and Children Aged Under 12” made public last month, illustrates the weaponization of euthanasia against patients who can’t speak for themselves.

It also gives us more heartbreaking information about the child who died — the first since the Netherlands legalized the euthanasia of children between one and 12 years old in 2024.

According to the review, the child was about to turn two when its parents consented for a physician to euthanize him or her. We still do not know the baby’s name or sex.

The child was reportedly born at just over 26 weeks old. A subsequent series of infections and damaging immune responses led to brain damage causing cerebral palsy, cerebral visual impairment and epilepsy.

The child’s parents struggled to manage his or her epilepsy. Side-effects from seizure medications caused the toddler to develop a swallowing disorder which, combined with difficulty expelling mucus, made the child more likely to die from choking on food or water.

The baby also suffered developmental delays. At the time of his or her death, the child was functioning at the developmental level of a six-week-old.

This poor baby certainly needed around-the-clock care. But, importantly, he or she was not dying. The child’s parents and physician made the decision to end his or her life, per the report, because they believed:

The child was experiencing unbearable suffering.
The child had no reasonable prospect of improvement.
No treatment would offer the child significant and lasting relief.

“The committee found that the physician could be satisfied that in the child’s situation there was no reasonable way to reduce or end the child’s suffering other than by termination of the child’s life,” the report concludes.

In the Netherlands, it is legal to euthanize someone who is suffering from a chronic illness or disability. But death is not a reasonable way to reduce or end chronic physical pain.

Pope John Paul II says it best in his Evangelium Vitae:

True “compassion” leads to sharing another’s pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.

Worse even than offering death as a form of pain relief, the parents and doctor euthanized a young child who could neither understand nor consent to death.

In addition to acknowledging “the child was incapable of any form of communication,” the review notes the physician could not ask the child about his or her pain levels:

TGiven the child was unable to indicate or confirm in any way whatsoever that they experienced their suffering as unbearable, the physician had to rely on his own observations, the parents’ observations and those of all the specialists he had contacted.

To this day, the Netherland government’s own website about euthanasia reads:

The patient must make the request personally. A request for euthanasia made by another person on behalf of the patient cannot be granted. It must always be clear the request has been made by the patient personally.

The child certainly did not consent to or request euthanasia, let alone personally inform any of the doctor’s conclusions about pain levels.

Even more distressing, not all consulting physicians agreed the child should be euthanized.

The review committee exonerated the physician of wrongdoing in euthanizing the child, in part, because he sought second opinions from other doctors. Not all those consulted thought the baby should be euthanized.

Dissenting voices noted that, while the seizures caused discomfort, they were not continuous. They recommended other medications and palliative treatment be explored.

The physician who euthanized the toddler told the review committee he tried the recommended medications, but that the side-effects were too severe.

It’s unclear what, if any, palliative options were explored, only that the parents did not want their child to be continuously sedated.

One other consulting physician agreed the toddler should be euthanized — but even he acknowledged the toddler was not in constant pain.

“The child’s unbearable suffering was clearly due to the continuous discomfort — except during sporadic better moments,” the outside doctor reportedly weighed in.

Can a patient be in continuous discomfort if they also experience “better moments?”

The review is sprinkled with dire assessments of the child’s ability, development and possibilities for improvement. It reads, in part:

In the course of the child’s short life, there was a complete lack of development or improvement.

Every facet of “being human” in terms of motor skills, behavior and personality was severely affected [by the child’s disorders], and there would be no improvement.

Here, the physician subtly reduces the child to something less than human. Though he or she is of the human species, the doctor seems to say, the child lacks the personality, the motor skills and behavioral development required to truly “be human.”

But human life doesn’t become valuable at some arbitrary developmental benchmark. The Bible tells us human life is intrinsically valuable because each human is made in the image of God.

The toddler euthanized in the Netherlands last year bore the image of God, just as he or she was, and deserved to live and receive compassionate care.

Instead, the Netherlands’ expansive euthanasia regime created a legal way, not only for people to elect to end their own lives, but for parents and guardians to choose to end the lives of their dependents and call it mercy.

That’s not mercy.

To learn more about euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, and to receive trusted guidance, review the resources below.

Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide

The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide

To learn more about the cultural spread of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, and why Christians should oppose it, check out the articles below.

As Euthanasia Expands in the West, Here’s How Christians Can Respond

Anglican Church of Canada Launches ‘Pastoral Liturgy’ for Medically-Assisted Suicide

British Lawmakers Vote to legalize Assisted Suicide, Tragically Devaluing Life

Over 16,000 Canadians Likely Died From Euthanasia in 2023

Canadian Retailer Launches Disturbing Advertising Campaign for Euthanasia

Canada Will Legalize Euthanasia for Those Struggling With Mental Illness

Tragic Case in Canada Highlights Problems with Permissive Euthanasia Laws

California Just Made It Easier for the Terminally Ill to Commit Suicide

New Mexico Becomes Ninth State to Pass Physician-Assisted Suicide; What Christians Need to Know

Eight Reasons to Oppose Physician-Assisted Suicide

Aug 13 2026

Doctors, Nursing Home and Catholic Bishop Sue Illinois Over Euthanasia Law

Four doctors, the Lutheran Care Center and Catholic Bishop Thomas Paprocki sued Illinois on August 11 over its radical new assisted suicide law, asking a federal court to block it from taking effect.

The complaint alleges the “End of Life Options” Act (SB 1950), which Governor Jay Robert “JB” Pritzker signed last December, requires medical professionals to cooperate with and facilitate patient suicides in violation of the Hippocratic Oath and their religious beliefs.

The Thomas More Society filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on the group’s behalf.

“Illinois is forcing faith-based hospitals, nuns, and doctors into supporting the state’s assisted suicide regime,” said Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society.

“The law commands Catholic hospitals, religious nursing homes, and faithful doctors to promote suicide’s alleged ‘benefits,’ refer patients to suicide drug prescribers, and then lie on death certificates to cover it up. This immoral scheme flagrantly violates religious liberty and free speech rights, and we intend to stop it.”

The Illinois Senate passed the Act in the dead of night on Halloween last year in a 30-27 vote; the state House had previously approved the bill in a 63-42 vote in May.

The Act legalizes physician-assisted suicide for adults who have a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less to live. It will take effect in September if a court fails to step in and enjoin the Act.

When it first became law, Thomas More Society warned the Act threatens conscience rights by requiring “physicians who object to assisted suicide on moral or religious grounds to refer patients to providers who will participate in ending their lives.”

As a result, Drs. Mary Keen Kirchoff, Michal Porubcin, Michael Hawking, and Brian Couri – all faithful Catholics – are joining the challenge to SB 1950. Any healthcare provider who fails to comply with the law could face fines up to $10,000, license revocation, and criminal prosecution.

“The State’s demand that physicians begin helping patients accomplish assisted suicide violates everything I know as a health care professional, as well as my deeply held Catholic convictions on the dignity of every human life,” said Dr. Mary Keen.

“As a doctor, I have a responsibility to meet my patients’ existential pain with loving accompaniment, not with abandonment.”

Thomas More Society also advised the law forces “religious hospitals and clinics to retain staff who promote assisted death on-site, as long as those staff provide lethal drugs off-site.”

Bishop Paprocki, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, joined the lawsuit and spoke out forcefully against the law.

“At the heart of the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry is the healing work of Christ — to stand with the suffering, to comfort the dying, and to affirm the God-given dignity of every human life,” said Bishop Paprocki, adding,

Illinois’s assisted suicide law undermines that mission by forcing Catholic hospitals and those who serve in them to push death onto their most vulnerable patients. We must be free to serve the sick and the dying according to our faith, not according to the state’s mandate.

Last year, Illinois became the 12th state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, followed days later by New York, which also legalized the practice. Euthanasia has quickly expanded throughout the West, making it critically important for faithful Christians to know how to respond.

Assisted suicide always violates a person’s right to life. It corrupts the medical profession by transforming physicians into killers. And it opens the door for the “right to die” to become a “duty to die” to save healthcare costs.

The practice is even worse when used to force religious medical professionals to violate their conscience and become complicit in a person’s suicide.

Let’s pray a court quickly intervenes in the Land of Lincoln and stems the rising tide of legalized death.

The lawsuit is Mary Keen Kirchoff et. al. v. Mario Treto, Jr. Any appeal in the case would be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which hears cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counselors. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

To reach Focus on the Family’s counseling service by phone, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Please be prepared to leave your contact information for a counselor to return a call to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

Related articles and resources:

Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide

The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide

As Euthanasia Expands in the West, Here’s How Christians Can Respond

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Signs ‘Dangerous’ Euthanasia Bill Into Law

Illinois Senate Passes ‘Tragic’ Bill to Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide

Photo from Getty Images.

Jul 10 2026

Anglican Church of Canada Launches ‘Pastoral Liturgy’ for Medically-Assisted Suicide

The Anglican Church of Canada launched a “liturgy” for clergy to use with those who choose to die by medically-assisted suicide. The rite includes confession and absolution for those intending to take their lives.

The church’s General Synod adopted “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically-Assisted Dying” in June 2026. The liturgy was “Authorised for Trial Use, Evaluation and Feedback.”

Suicide is a sin, opposed always and everywhere by Christians. The prohibition against self-murder is rooted in the truth that humans are made in the image of God, possessing inherent dignity and immeasurable worth. Christians are called to defend, protect and value all human lives – not deliberately end them.

Government-approved suicide sends a strong message to the sick and disabled that their lives don’t matter, they are a drain on their family and friends, and it’s more cost-effective for them to be killed rather than burden a country’s nationalized health care system.

But now, the Anglican Church of Canada has provided clergy with a way to “bless” those committing this sin – rather than encourage them to turn away from the darkness of death.

“Pastoral Liturgies” acknowledges that many “Anglicans hold that MAiD [medical assistance in dying] does not offer any moral good, and may indeed be against God’s wishes for humanity.” May?

The resource also notes that assisted suicide brings “concerns about the potentials for abuse of the practice through coercion or in the fragilities of a health care system that is in crisis.”

But then it goes on to state that clergy can provide “pastoral care” and “prayerful presence” for those engaging in assisted suicide, adding:

Some Anglicans have had profound experiences in which a death by MAiD has been accompanied by faithful prayer and strong pastoral care.

The resource tries to have it both ways. Some people think this is a sin – but hey, if you’re okay with it, then use our new liturgy!

Canada has been at the forefront of legalizing and promoting MAiD since 2015, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that criminalizing assisted suicide somehow violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Assisted suicide was no longer categorized as a homicide.

In 2016, Parliament followed through on the Court’s decision, adopting Bill C-14 “to permit medical practitioners and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying and to permit pharmacists and other persons to assist in the process.”

Canada Health describes its extermination program as “a process that allows someone who is found eligible to be able to receive assistance from a medical practitioner in ending their life.”

The government allows two procedures for euthanasia:

Method 1: A physician or nurse practitioner directly administers a substance that causes death, such as an injection of a drug. This is sometimes called clinician-administered medical assistance in dying.

Method 2: A physician or nurse practitioner provides or prescribes a drug that the eligible person takes themselves, in order to bring about their own death. This is sometimes called self-administered medical assistance in dying.

Physicians and nurse practitioners help kill their patients who, supposedly, are diagnosed with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”

More recently, the federal government approved assisted suicide for those suffering from mental illness. Those “health care” services begin in March 2027.

Health Canada’s “Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada” reported that doctors helped kill 16,499 people in 2024 – about 5% of the nation’s deaths.

Over the past 10 years, 100,000 Canadians have been killed through euthanasia.

Sadly, America is not that far behind. At least 13 states and the District of Columbia allow physician-assisted suicide, where a patient is prescribed drugs and self-administers them.

The Anglican Church of Canada is a dying denomination. In 1967, it had 1.2 million members. Sixty years later, it has only 294,000 members with fewer than 59,000 attendees on a given Sunday.

A 2019 report projected that the church would have “no members, attenders or givers … by approximately 2040.” Providing “pastoral” resources for members to commit suicide is sure to hasten the church’s own demise.

Rather than affirming sin, the church might consider pulling the plug on itself. There is probably a remnant of orthodox believers in the Anglican Church of Canada who oppose this “Pastoral Liturgy.”

But even in giving priests this option, it is clear the church has left biblical teaching to bless and affirm those committing the grievous sin of suicide.

Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counselors. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

Related articles and resources:

Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Signs ‘Dangerous’ Euthanasia Bill Into Law

Invoking God’s ‘Mercy,’ NY Gov. Kathy Hochul To Sign Assisted-Suicide Bill

The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Dec 18 2025

Invoking God’s ‘Mercy,’ NY Gov. Kathy Hochul To Sign Assisted-Suicide Bill

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced her intention to sign a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide into law. The Empire State will become the 13th state to legalize euthanasia, following Illinois, which became the 12th state just days earlier.

The New York Assembly approved the Medical Aid in Dying Act (AB 136) on April 29 in a 81-67 vote. The state Senate passed the bill on June 9 in a 35-27 vote.

The governor wrote in the Albany Times Union that state lawmakers will modify the bill to include a residency requirement, a five-day waiting period and a requirement that patients record their oral request to end their lives.

Gov. Hochul, a Catholic, unashamedly cited God’s “mercy” and “compassion” as part of her reasoning for signing the bill, writing,

I reflected on this during a Catholic funeral Mass for a family friend where the priest spoke of the welcome home to eternal life. I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be.

This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life.

The governor reflected upon her mother’s death from ALS, saying she “watched that vicious disease steal away the strong woman who raised me as it took her ability to walk, to eat, to speak and, ultimately, to live.”

“I have come to see [physician-assisted suicide] as a matter of individual choice,” the governor said.

Catholic Bishop John Barres, bishop of Rockville Centre, issued a statement calling Gov. Hochul’s reflections during the funeral Mass “profoundly misled.”

“Jesus calls us to help the suffering to carry their crosses with love,” the bishop urged, “not to participate in the willful taking of a life.”

The Catholic Church steadfastly opposes euthanasia. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.

Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.

This murderous act … must always be forbidden and excluded (CCC 2277).

The New York Catholic bishops released a joint statement following the governor’s announcement.

“We are extraordinarily troubled by Governor Hochul’s announcement that she will sign the egregious bill passed by the legislature earlier this year sanctioning physician-assisted suicide in New York State,” the bishops wrote.

“This new law signals our government’s abandonment of its most vulnerable citizens, telling people who are sick or disabled that suicide in their case is not only acceptable, but is encouraged by our elected leaders,” they added. “Tragically, this new law will seriously undermine all of the anti-suicide and mental health care investments Governor Hochul has made through her tenure.”

The New York Families Foundation, a Focus on the Family-allied state family policy council, explained that amending the bill doesn’t solve its central problems.

“Empathy, however sincere, cannot justify a public policy that abandons the state’s responsibility to protect vulnerable people and that fundamentally alters the role of medicine,” the organization stated. “Amendments cannot cure a law that is fundamentally flawed.”

Christians should keep these points in mind when discussing euthanasia:

Euthanasia always violates a person’s dignity, since it kills an innocent human being who is made in God’s image.
Physician-assisted suicide is not an “individual choice” since it always involves a physician killing another person – either actively or passively.
Euthanasia violates the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm.”
Physician-assisted suicide is essentially never necessary to reduce a patient’s suffering thanks to great improvements in palliative care and hospice.
Many patients choose euthanasia due to depression or to avoid “being a burden to others”; suicide is never the answer to these problems.
Euthanasia can easily transform the so-called “right to die” into a “duty to die” to save the government and healthcare system money.

As physician-assisted suicide continues to expand throughout Western countries, and into more U.S. states, we must be even more resolute and fierce in opposing state-sanctioned death for the terminally ill.

As Jesus taught in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (ESV).

To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).

Focus on the Family offers a one-time counseling consultation with a licensed or pastoral counselor free of charge thanks to generous donor support. If you would like to request a consultation with Focus’ Counseling Department, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM (Mountain Time) or complete our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

Related articles and resources:

Answers to Common Questions About Physician-Assisted Suicide

The Problem With Ending It All: A Response to Physician-Assisted Suicide