A 26-year-old depressed man is dead — not from disease, not from accident, but from Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program. His story should be a warning to the United States: Once we allow the state to determine whose life is worth living, then no life — young or old, healthy or sick — is truly safe.
This article is a lightly edited transcript of the “Here’s the Point” podcast by Ryan Helfenbein, executive director of the Standing for Freedom Center.
Over the Christmas break some of you might have heard that on December 30, 2025, Kiano Vafaeian was euthanized in Vancouver after being approved by Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a physician who has ended over 400 lives through Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.
Kiano suffered from diabetes, had lost vision in his left eye, and struggled with depression. His mother, Margaret Marsilla, had successfully stopped his first assisted suicide attempt back in 2022 through a public petition campaign. But this time, she couldn’t save him.
“No compassion. No protection. No effort to save a life, only to end it,” Marsilla wrote.
Despite Canada’s ban on MAID for mental illness until 2027, Dr. Wiebe did find a loophole in the system. Kiano was approved for death — not treatment, not therapy, not help, but death.
This isn’t just happening in Canada. Right now, 12 U.S. states have legalized assisted suicide: California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Nearly 20 states considered similar legislation in 2025. Illinois just passed its End-of-Life Options Act and awaits a Senate vote — it would become the first Midwest state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.* Maryland, Delaware, and New Hampshire are all advancing bills.
In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, the state is now working to expand who can prescribe lethal drugs — from physicians only to include nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Vermont and Washington are pursuing similar expansions.
The trend is clear: What starts as “compassionate care for the terminally ill” inevitably expands to include the depressed, the disabled, and even the poor.
So, how should Christians think about this? Here’s the point.
There’s a scene in Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” where Sheriff Bell recounts a conversation at a benefit dinner. A woman tells him, “I don’t like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion.” Sheriff Bell responds, “I’m going to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep.”
What seemed like a warning in 2005 has become reality in 2026. A culture that devalues life at conception will inevitably devalue life at its end. If we can kill the unborn because they’re inconvenient, we’ll eventually kill the elderly or even the depressed because they’re burdensome or not experiencing a quality of life that they desire.
If we can end life when it’s developing, we’ll end life when it’s declining at any stage.
This is a grave spiritual crisis because it represents a fundamental rejection of God’s authority over life and death. Scripture is clear: It is the Lord who gives and the Lord who ultimately takes away (Job 1:21).
We were made in God’s image. He formed our inward parts and knitted us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). And as Christians we understand that we are not our own–we were bought and paid for with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Christians must defend life at every stage — from the moment of conception until natural death.
Kiano Vafaeian needed treatment for depression. He needed hope and healing. His death was completely unnecessary and completely avoidable.
But what He needed most was the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, Canada’s system offered him death as the only answer for depression. His mother fought to save him once and succeeded. The second time, the system worked against her, and a doctor who boasts of ending hundreds of lives found a way to approve his death despite legal restrictions.
Make no mistake: This is not compassion. This is not mercy. This is evil. And this is a culture of death masquerading as a dignified end. And this thinking doesn’t just reside in Canada, but it’s coming to America state by state.
As Christians we must speak up and defend the vulnerable. We must insist that human life — all of human life — bears the image of God and possesses inherent dignity from conception to natural death. Once we allow the state to decide whose life is worth living or whose life is worth saving, whether young or old, happy or depressed, then no life is truly safe.
* Editor’s Note: Illinois’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act has been signed into law.
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