In today’s culture, we are increasingly treating human life like a disposable commodity. It’s not just at the beginning, with abortion, but also at the end, with assisted suicide (in Canada known as medical assistance in dying, or MAiD). Many don’t pause to ask: what underlying mindset allows both practices to flourish together?
For individuals and families who care deeply about the dignity of life, and for brands or organizations committed to human flourishing, this convergence is alarming. This article helps you see the hidden link between abortion and assisted suicide, explains why it matters, and offers a framework for responding with clarity and compassion.
Who this article helps:
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People working in pro-life, bioethics, healthcare or allied fields, seeking deeper insight into how these issues intersect.
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Individuals and families wrestling personally or professionally with questions of life, autonomy, suffering and caregiving.
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Thought-leaders and content creators (including ethical brands like ours) who want to craft responses grounded in dignity and truth, not panic or shame.
By the end, you’ll understand how a culture that treats life as optional at both its start and finish erodes human dignity, and how we might reclaim a culture of care instead of disposal.
A Metaphor for Life and the Problem
At Seven Weeks Coffee, we often reflect on how a simple coffee bean begins in soil, grows under the sun, is harvested, washed, roasted and ground and then finally ends up in your mug. This process reminds us that life is rich, slow, and interconnected.
Yet what we see in our culture now is a rush-to-finish mentality: if life is inconvenient, costly, or burdensome, maybe it’s easier to end it. At the beginning with abortion. At the end with assisted suicide. When life is treated like a bean to discard rather than a seed to nurture, profound questions emerge about dignity, value and human worth.
The Two Ends of Life and the Same Mentality
Consider two very different scenarios:
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A pregnant woman, meeting with a clinician, told “We’ll schedule the procedure … you’ll be relieved … you’ll get back to work.”
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Years later, an elderly or terminally ill person meeting another clinician and hearing, “We can make your suffering stop … you have autonomy … you can die with dignity.”
In both cases the same theme appears: choice, autonomy, relief from burden, convenience. The logic sounds different in detail, but the underlying mindset is similar: life is to be managed, if it’s too much, too costly, too inconvenient, then easy exit is framed as kindness.
In Canada, for example, abortion is widely available (≈ 97,211 induced abortions in 2022) and MAiD is rapidly expanding (over 13,000 provisions in 2022, roughly 4.1 % of all deaths).
When the same professional may offer both services, it invites the question: what happens in a society when life is negotiable, both at the start and at the end?
A Case Study: Dr. Ellen Wiebe
Ellen Wiebe, M.D., is a Canadian physician who publicly provides both abortion services and MAiD. She has described her work as handing back autonomy to people who’ve lost it. This dual role forces us to look deeper: medicine, which one expects to protect and nurture life, becomes a mechanism through which life can be ended at either extreme.
A 2022 paper from Cambridge University Press raised concerns that MAiD in Canada may “undermine meaningful autonomy” when decisions are influenced by poverty, isolation or disability, structural factors that raise significant ethical questions about “choice.”
So when autonomy is elevated above sanctity of life, and when relief of burden replaces care, how far from a culture of protecting the vulnerable have we drifted?
The Structural Link Between Abortion and Assisted Suicide
It helps to map how these two very different services share common underpinnings:
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The economics of convenience
Ending a life before birth or near death can appear cheaper, simpler, more efficient than sustaining life with all its messiness, health care burdens, dependency and cost.
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Normalization of life-ending as care
When abortion is framed as “women’s health care” and assisted death as “end-of-life care,” the boundary between treating someone and terminating someone becomes blurred.
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Ideology of autonomy and choice
If the highest good becomes autonomy, then comfort, convenience and control may overshadow questions of inherent dignity, shared vulnerability and societal responsibility.
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Culture of abandonment
Accepting death as a solution to suffering slowly reinforces the idea that life is only justifiable under certain terms, productivity, convenience, ease. The weakest become the most vulnerable.
When we accept that life is one of many options, rather than a gift to protect, the ripple effects extend far beyond clinics. We start asking: when is someone “too burdensome” to live? When is life not worth the cost?
Why This Matters: Reclaiming Human Dignity
Let’s go back to the bean-in-the-soil metaphor. A coffee bean doesn’t sprout overnight. It takes time, care, unpredictable weather, pruning and even setbacks. The final brew is only the beginning of the story of that bean.
Human life, similarly, unfolds in seasons, messy, inconvenient, vulnerable, but still deeply good. When our culture rushes to skip the hard parts of life, it sacrifices the richness of what it means to be human.
True dignity isn’t found by skipping difficulty; it is found in how we treasure life in its difficulty. If a physician says “I’m giving you autonomy” by ending life, we must ask: what kind of freedom is that? Freedom that erases human existence, rather than walking with it?
Medicine was meant to heal. Culture was meant to cultivate. When we shift into a mindset of disposal, we lose not only others’ dignity, we lose our own.
A Call to Reflection & Action
This article isn’t about shame. It’s about awareness. Not about blaming individuals but about inviting deeper conversation. While abortion and assisted suicide are often treated separately, the real question is how we regard human life at all stages.
Ask:
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How much does convenience, cost or autonomy weigh in valuing a person’s life?
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When is “choice” really freedom, and when is it pressure born from poverty, isolation or fear?
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What kind of society do we want for the vulnerable: unborn, dying, disabled, isolated?
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How do we build a culture where the smallest, weakest and earliest among us are affirmed, not discarded?
At our brand, Seven Weeks Coffee, we believe in slow craftsmanship, protecting the humble and valuing human dignity. That extends beyond coffee. It’s about honoring life. Not when it’s easy, but when it’s raw, messy, inconvenient.
Conclusion: The Future We Choose
In a society where both abortion and assisted suicide are normalized, the real danger isn’t simply that more lives will end prematurely. It is that we will no longer believe in the simple truth that every human life is good, no matter the circumstances.
When a society expects life to meet certain standards of comfort, autonomy or productivity, what becomes of the weak, the unwanted, the suffering? The problem isn’t just one policy or clinic, it’s a cultural shift.
We need more than reform. We need a renewal of how we see and treat one another. We need a culture of care that says: yes, life is worth walking through, even when it’s hard. For the sake of others and for ourselves.
Let’s rediscover what loving care looks like. Let’s value life, not just for the sake of our brands or our causes, but simply because it is human. Every human. From the first breath to the last.
