When Dying Pays More Than Living
There is a date on my calendar that has taken on a significance I never anticipated.
It is the expiration date of my life insurance policy.
Years ago, long before I was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer, I purchased a term- life policy for the same reason millions of husbands and fathers do: If something happened to me, I wanted my family to be financially secure.
Today, I am terminally ill. My cancer has progressed, and my treatment options have narrowed. New York’s recently enacted Medical Aid in Dying Act now adds a disturbing variable to that equation.
Under the law, an eligible terminally ill patient may obtain medication intended to end his life. New York law also provides that a death under the Act does not deny life insurance benefits.
For someone in my circumstances, the implications are hard to ignore.
If I choose assisted suicide before my term-life policy expires, my family will receive the death benefit. If I fight to live and survive beyond that date, the financial protection will disappear.
Put simply: Dying sooner could be worth more to my family financially than living longer.
I have no intention of making that choice.
But the fact that the incentive exists should trouble us.
For more than a decade, I helped lead the effort to oppose physician-assisted suicide in New York. Much of that debate centered on autonomy—the argument that a mentally capable, terminally ill adult should be free to decide when and how to die.
Cancer has taught me how complicated the word “choice” can be.
Terminally ill patients do not make decisions in a vacuum. Medical bills accumulate. Income may disappear. A spouse may leave work to provide care. Savings can dwindle. A patient who has spent a lifetime providing for his family may suddenly depend on them for nearly everything.
And sometimes there is a life insurance policy that is about to expire.
No one has to say, “You should die.”
The numbers can whisper it all on their own.
Imagine being a husband looking at that date, knowing that dying before it could provide financial security for the woman and children you love, while fighting for additional months or years could leave them with less.
I don’t have to imagine it.
I know what my policy provides. I know when it expires. I know my prognosis. And I know that New York law provides a path to ensure my family receives that money. I won’t take it.
But another patient might—not because he doesn’t value his life or because his family wants him gone, but because he loves them.
That is what makes this incentive so troubling.
Providing for one’s family is an honorable instinct. We should be deeply concerned when our laws allow that instinct to justify prematurely ending a life.
And life insurance is only one example. Terminal illness can make living expensive.
Treatment, caregiving, lost income, and long-term care all carry costs. A frightened patient can begin to see himself not merely as sick, but as a financial burden.
In those circumstances, the line between autonomy and coercion is not nearly as bright as we might wish.
I hope to outlive my life insurance.
If I do, my family may lose a substantial financial benefit. I understand exactly what that means.
But no terminally ill New Yorker should ever have to look at a date on the calendar and wonder whether the most financially responsible thing he can do for the people he loves is to die before it arrives.
Why I Will Quietly Decline
On August 5, 2026, New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act took effect, allowing certain terminally ill patients to obtain medication intended to end their lives.
I am one of the New Yorkers for whom that law is no longer an abstraction.
In January 2026, I was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer that had spread throughout my abdominal cavity. Without treatment, my prognosis was measured in months, not years. I underwent surgery and eventually began chemotherapy.
The months since have not gone as I hoped.
My cancer has progressed. I have been hospitalized twice since June for bowel obstructions, and my treatment options have become more limited. Last week, I was preparing to enter hospice care.
Then one doctor offered another option: surgery.
It is not a promise. It is not a cure. It is another chance.
And right now, another chance means a great deal to me.
My prognosis places me among those eligible under New York’s assisted-suicide law. After spending more than a decade opposing the law in Albany, I now understand this debate in a way I never wanted to.
Strangely, as death has drawn nearer, I find myself thinking less about dying and more about life.
Cancer brings clarity.
Given the choice, I would rather spend a quiet morning on my deck, with the sun warming my face and a cup of hot coffee in hand, than spend another day in a hospital. I would rather hear my wife’s voice than the alarms in another hospital room. I would rather talk with my children about their lives than talk with another doctor about mine.
Things that once seemed ordinary have become precious.
An ordinary day is no small gift.
Cancer has also taught me about suffering.
I do not romanticize it. There is nothing beautiful about pain, exhaustion, bowel obstructions, hospital stays, or frightening conversations with physicians. I have earnestly prayed for healing and asked God for more years—many more, if He is willing.
But my Christian faith has never promised me a life free from suffering. It has given me something better: the assurance that suffering need not be meaningless.
It is one thing to speak of trusting God when the future seems secure. It is another when you are preparing for hospice one day and considering risky surgery the next.
Faith is not certainty about what will happen next. It is confidence in the One who will be there when it does.
Cancer has also confronted me with the limits of autonomy.
Our culture prizes control—over our bodies, our circumstances, and, increasingly, the timing and manner of our deaths. I understand the appeal better than I once did.
There is very little about advanced cancer that feels within my control. I cannot command my cancer to stop growing. I cannot guarantee that surgery will succeed. I cannot guarantee tomorrow.
But losing control has not meant losing dignity.
Dependence is not indignity. Weakness does not erase purpose.
My worth does not rise when I am strong or diminish when I am sick. It is not measured by what I produce, how independently I live, or by how many healthy days remain.
My life has value because God gave it to me.
And a gift does not cease to be a gift just because it becomes difficult to carry.
I don’t know where this latest possibility will lead. Perhaps surgery will give me more time.
Perhaps my earthly life is much closer to its end than I want it to be.
I have learned not to pretend I know.
Eventually, death will come for me, as it does for everyone. My Christian faith allows me to face that truth without believing I must control when it comes. Death will not have the final word.
New York now offers people in circumstances like mine the ability to hasten that day.
I understand why control can feel like compassion when so much else has been taken from you.
But I have discovered something I value more than control: trust, hope, and purpose.
Just days ago, I thought I was headed for hospice. Today, there is another possibility.
Tomorrow belongs to God.
So, when New York offers me the opportunity to hasten death, I will quietly decline.
And if tomorrow comes, I will receive it as the gift it is.
Voting to Lessen Evil
Election season has a way of revealing just how complicated citizenship can be for Christians.
Voting would be much easier if every race offered us one candidate who clearly reflected our convictions and another who clearly opposed them. Sometimes the choice is straightforward.
Other times, it is anything but.
As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Christians will face races where neither major-party candidate fully reflects a biblical worldview. In some contests, both candidates may support abortion rights. Both may be wrong on marriage, religious liberty, parental rights, or other issues we care deeply about.
That leaves many conscientious Christians with a difficult question:
What am I supposed to do when neither candidate reflects what I believe?
Some choose not to vote at all. Others cast a ballot for a third-party or independent candidate as an act of conscience.
I understand the impulse.
But my own approach has long been summed up this way:
I do not vote for the lesser of two evils. I vote to lessen evil.
It’s an important difference.
- VOTING IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF EVERYTHING -
Casting a ballot for a candidate does not mean I endorse everything that candidate believes, says, or has done.
I have never met a candidate with whom I agree 100 percent of the time, and I suspect I never will.
Voting is not canonization. It does not declare someone righteous, trustworthy in every respect, or worthy of imitation.
It is an act of citizenship in which we are asked to choose between the actual options before us.
And sometimes those choices are deeply imperfect.
Christians should certainly vote according to conscience. But conscience should be informed not only by what makes us feel morally comfortable, but also by what our decision—or our failure to decide—may mean for our neighbors.
Who will write the laws?
Who will appoint judges?
Who will decide whether parents or government bureaucracies have greater authority over children?
Who will determine whether religious liberty is protected or eroded?
Who will make decisions affecting the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, and other vulnerable members of society?
Those decisions matter.
- PRINCIPLES AND PRUDENCE -
Christian political engagement requires both principle and prudence.
Principle tells us that some things are objectively right or wrong. Human life matters.
Religious liberty matters. Marriage and family matter. Parents matter. Truth matters.
Prudence asks another question:
Given the choices available to me, which action is most likely to advance what is good and restrain what is wrong?
That does not require pretending that an imperfect candidate is not who he or she is.
It requires honestly evaluating the consequences of the choice before us.
Suppose two candidates both take a position I believe is morally wrong. That fact matters.
But the analysis does not stop there.
One candidate may favor expanding that wrong, while another would limit it. One may oppose protections for conscience, while another would defend them. Their records and proposed policies may have markedly different practical consequences.
The choice may still be disappointing.
But disappointing choices can have dramatically different consequences.
- WHAT ABOUT THIRD PARTIES? -
There may be races in which a third-party or independent candidate better reflects my convictions than either major-party nominee.
Every voter must decide what to do with that information.
But we should also be clear-eyed about the political system in which we participate. For practical purposes, America operates largely through two major parties. Third-party candidates can raise important issues and challenge the major parties, but many general elections ultimately come down to the Democratic and Republican nominees.
That reality should be part of our moral calculus.
Casting a vote that makes us feel pure is not especially virtuous if we refuse to consider the foreseeable consequences of that decision.
Sometimes conscience demands that we stand alone.
Sometimes wisdom requires us to choose among imperfect options.
Discernment means recognizing the difference.
- IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE CHOICES, GET INVOLVED EARLIER -
There is another response to the frustration of looking at a ballot and wondering, how did these become my choices?
Get involved before Election Day.
Too many Americans begin paying attention to politics only after the candidates have already been recruited, endorsed, nominated, and placed on the ballot.
By then, much of the work will already have happened.
If Christians want better candidates in November, we need more principled men and women to participate in the process that produces those candidates in the first place.
That can mean becoming involved in a local political party. It can mean serving on a town, county, or state committee. It can mean helping recruit candidates, circulating petitions, participating in primaries, supporting good candidates early—or even becoming a candidate yourself.
Political parties are not merely names people come up with on Election Day. Months earlier, party committees and their members play meaningful roles in recruiting, supporting, and, in some cases, formally designating candidates. In New York, candidates for certain party positions are elected through the primary process, and state party committees formally designate candidates for statewide office.
That means Christians who care about the direction of government should not think only about who they vote for in November. We should also consider who is helping shape the choices that make it to the ballot.
Perhaps you should become a county committee member.
Maybe you should help recruit someone you respect.
Maybe you should volunteer for a principled candidate in the primary.
Maybe the person who needs to run is you.
We often lament that good people will not run for public office. But good candidates do not simply appear. Someone encourages them. Someone recruits them. Someone supports them. Someone helps them navigate the process.
If we want better choices on Election Day, Christians cannot remain absent from the places where those choices take shape.
- CHRISTIANS SHOULD NOT RETREAT -
What concerns me most is when frustration with politics causes Christians to abandon the process altogether.
Government will continue making decisions whether Christians participate or not.
Elections will still determine who writes our laws.
School boards will continue to make decisions affecting children.
Legislatures will still debate abortion, assisted suicide, religious freedom, taxation, education, and parental rights.
Courts will still be shaped by the people elected to appoint judges.
Walking away does not free us from the consequences of not participating.
It simply removes our voice from the decision-making process.
Voting is not the entirety of Christian citizenship, and politics should never become our religion. Our ultimate hope is not found in Washington, Albany, or any political party.
Our hope is in Jesus Christ.
But recognizing that government cannot save us does not mean it is irrelevant.
We have been entrusted with extraordinary liberties, including the ability to help choose those who govern us. I believe stewardship requires us to use that opportunity thoughtfully, prayerfully, and responsibly.
So, study the candidates.
Look beyond campaign commercials.
Examine voting records and public statements.
Consider not merely personalities but policies and their consequences.
Get involved before Election Day.
Help shape the candidate pool.
And when qualified, principled people are needed, be willing to ask whether God may be calling you to serve.
Then vote.
You may leave the voting booth disappointed that the choices were not better.
I have.
But I refuse to confuse an imperfect choice with an immoral one.
I am not seeking a candidate to serve as my pastor, my theologian, or my Savior.
I am deciding who should hold governmental authority for the next number of years.
And when the choice is between imperfect alternatives, my goal remains the same:
Where my vote can restrain evil, protect even a single innocent life, preserve at least some liberty, and leave greater room for what is good, I believe I have a responsibility to use it.
I do not vote for the lesser of two evils.
In a fallen world, I vote to lessen evil.
Faithful With the Days We’re Given
Brothers, Jason McGuire here.
I had hoped to be with you in Rochester for Iron Sharpens Iron. I was looking forward to opening God’s Word with you, enjoying the fellowship, and being challenged alongside you.
But my chemotherapy schedule required me to step back. Still, I’m grateful for the chance to share these few minutes with you.
As many of you know, I was diagnosed earlier this year with Stage IV colorectal cancer.
Since then, there have been treatments, hospitalizations, and difficult conversations. In recent months, medical interventions have left five holes in my chest and abdomen. Even today, medical devices still hang from three of them. It hasn’t been easy. At one point, I was preparing to enter hospice. However, after an extensive and risky operation, I was able to come home—a place I didn’t think I would ever see again.
Now, chemotherapy is part of my routine.
I’m still terminal and incurable, according to the doctors, but I continue to ask my Great Physician for healing. I would be grateful if you would pray with me.
But today, I want to share three lessons I’m learning along the way.
First, a faithful man must be willing to accept help.
Many of us are comfortable being the person others rely on. We provide. We lead. We solve problems. When someone needs help, we want to be there.
It can be much harder to be the one who needs help.
Honestly, my pride has taken a hit over the past several months. I am restricted from lifting more than ten pounds. Now, my wife carries the groceries and even my backpack when we travel. And trust me, that is some of the most dignified things she has to do for me now.
But brothers, we were never meant to carry everything alone.
We need the Lord. We need our wives and families. We need the church. We need brothers who will pray with us—and sometimes sit beside us when there is nothing left to say.
“Iron sharpens iron” assumes we are close enough to affect one another. Iron must come into contact with iron to sharpen its edge.
So, let me ask you: Is there another man who knows how you are really doing?
Does anyone know where you’re struggling, what you’re afraid of, or where you’re tempted?
If the answer is no, take a step toward someone today. You don’t have to wait for a hospital admission to admit you need a brother.
Second, give the people you love your presence.
For years, much of my work has focused on the next meeting, the next legislative battle, and the next deadline.
That work matters. I still deeply believe in the mission God has given us at New York Families.
I was a very project-oriented person, but a serious diagnosis brings the people closest to you into sharper focus.
Your wife needs you. Your children need you. The people God has entrusted to your care need more than you can provide for them.
They need your attention, affection, prayers, and example.
There’s a conversation you’ve been putting off. An apology you need to make. An encouraging word you’ve been meaning to say.
Say it.
Put the phone down. Listen. Pray together.
We tend to assume there will be another opportunity. Sometimes there is. But today is the only opportunity we know we have. So, redeem the time. Do it now, not tomorrow.
Third, trust God with the outcome while being faithful with the next step.
I would welcome many more years with my family. I want more time to serve, and I am asking God for it.
But faith also means bringing my unanswered questions to Him.
Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
That is a difficult prayer, especially when you know what you want the answer to be.
Yet Jesus shows us that we can bring our deepest desires to the Father while still surrendering ourselves to His care.
I don’t know what the months ahead will bring. I do know that Jesus Christ is worthy of my trust.
And brothers, whatever you are facing, He is worthy of yours.
You may be carrying a diagnosis, a troubled marriage, a wayward child, financial distress, or another burden no one in the room knows about.
Bring it to Him. Let a brother walk with you. Then take the next faithful step.
Love your family. Keep your word. Confess your sin. Serve where God has placed you.
None of us knows how many days we have.
Let’s be faithful with the days we’re given.
God bless you, brothers.