By the end of 2024, enough Canadians to fill a sizable football stadium had died by euthanasia, according to recently released official statistics. As Canadian ethicist Daryl Pullman observes, these deaths “are in point of fact, homicides.” So while the government refers to euthanasia and assisted suicide as MAID (for “medical assistance in dying”), a more accurate term is SHAM: sanctioned homicide actualized medically.
A detailed exposé of SHAM from a biblical worldview perspective is available in the article “When Health Care Becomes Homicide.” As an update to this article, the following overview will highlight some concerning details from the latest data, which represent Canadian SHAM deaths during the year 2024. First, a little background information is in order.
Some Background
SHAM includes both physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia. In PAS, an individual gives himself or herself lethal drugs that a medical practitioner has prescribed for suicide purposes. In euthanasia, a medical practitioner personally kills the individual. Euthanasia has accounted for the overwhelming majority of Canadian SHAM deaths.
SHAM has been legal (or at least, not criminally prosecutable) in Canada since 2016. Originally, restrictions stated that only adults with a “grievous, irremediable medical condition” and a “reasonably foreseeable natural death” could die by SHAM. However, the government struck down the foreseeable natural death restriction in 2021. Since then, the government uses the term “Track 1” for SHAM cases where people had a reasonably foreseeable natural death. “Track 2,” meanwhile, refers to cases where people were not already dying of natural causes.
Health Canada has released six annual reports on SHAM, beginning in 2019. Let’s see some of the stats.
Highlights from the Latest Data
Totals: Between 2016 and 2024, SHAM extinguished a reported total of 76,475 Canadian lives. Of these deaths, 16,499 occurred last year alone—a record number compared to previous years, as Figure 1 shows.
Causes of Deaths: In 2024, all cases of SHAM occurred by euthanasia rather than PAS.
Percentage of Deaths via SHAM: Just over 1 in 20 Canadians now die by SHAM. Oddly, however, the last two annual reports both state that SHAM does not qualify as a “cause of death” according to World Health Organization criteria and “should not be compared to cause of death statistics in Canada.” The idea that SHAM shouldn’t count as a cause of death does not appear to be similarly emphasized in earlier annual reports, which all include a sentence stating, “In [x year], there were [x number of] cases of MAID reported in Canada, accounting for [x percent] of all deaths in Canada.”
Cases Where Natural Death Was Not Foreseeable: In 2024, medical practitioners killed 732 Canadians who did not have a reasonably foreseeable natural death, representing 4.4% of SHAM cases that year. This is also a record number, although the government emphasizes the rate by which these “Track 2” cases are annually increasing has lessened.
Reasons Given for Choosing SHAM: Compared to 2022 and 2023, more Canadians in 2024 reported choosing SHAM for reasons including lost independence and emotional distress. Tellingly, people who died of SHAM without having a reasonably foreseeable natural death (Track 2) were twice as likely to cite loneliness (44.7%) as the reason compared to people whose natural death was foreseeable (Track 1, 21.9%).
A Biblical Response
What are Christians to make of these tragic realities? Here are a few ideas for how to respond:
- Be equipped to help others understand why SHAM opposes a biblical worldview and is not justifiable from a public-policy perspective. This article is here to help.
- Pray for changes of hearts in Canada and around the world, that people would turn from choosing death to choosing life—and especially would find eternal life in Jesus Christ.
- Advance the gospel, sharing the hope that our secularized society needs.
- Advocate for life, especially as more jurisdictions in the US and elsewhere consider legalizing forms of SHAM.
- Support pro-life palliative care options.
- Reach out to others as the church, to combat factors such as emotional distress and loneliness that are motivating people to seek death for themselves. (See also Matthew 25:36.)
As SHAM snuffs out tens of thousands of lives, we must stand as lights amid a world desperate for the hope found only in Jesus—the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
