I have been “away” from these pages for too long, but now I’m back.
I’m back because there is really big news to share with you today. Four national disability rights organizations have joined together to launch a major Court Challenge to Track 2 medically assisted dying/suicide law in Canada.
A press conference was held on the morning of September 26, 2024.
The four organizations behind this challenge are:
Inclusion Canada (Canadians with intellectual disabilities and their families). Krista Carr, Executive Vice-President
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (Cross-disability federation of disability rights organizations) Heather Walkus, Chairperson
Indigenous Disability Canada, Neil Belanger, Chief Executive Officer
DAWN (Disabled Womens Network) Canada, Bonnie Brayton, Chief Executive Officer
All told, these four organizations represent a huge swath of people with disabilities, their families and loved ones, from East to West and North to South. These are people who believe that Track 2 MAID undermines their, or their loved one’s, very right to exist on an equal basis with others in this country.
Two individual litigants, whose privacy is protected at this time, have joined the challenge as well. Their stories will make it abundantly clear to the court the devastating impact that Track 2 MAID has had on their lives.
That right — the right to exist on an equal basis with others — is supposed to be guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an essential component of Canada’s Constitution. This case contends that this important right is violated by an assisted suicide law that singles out disabled people for the so-called “option” of a premature death.
The new Court challenge contends that an entire sector of our population has had its right to exist undermined in a way that is unjust and deeply threatening. And there is much evidence that their claims are well-founded. Death is being “offered” as a solution to any number of difficult social problems: inadequate and insufficient housing; insufficient income, employment and social supports; limited healthcare budgets; exclusionary research budgets; etc. In fact, the very existence of the medical exemption to the criminal prohibition of assisting a death or suicide, deepens and exacerbates long-standing insecurities and conditions of inequality that have pervaded our medical and social systems.
This constitutional violation cannot be remedied by a few tweaks to existing “safeguards”. It’s not just the abuses — and there are plenty! — that are the problem. The whole premise of people with disabilities being less valuable and less worth protecting than non-disabled folks is problematic in the extreme. Think about it — the preposterous notion that death is a neutral and acceptable solution to the immense problems that people with disabilities face (and suffer from) every single day of their lives — that’s just wrong. Death is not a benefit or a right. It is the end of all benefits and rights — and if it’s the only “choice” on offer when you’re in distress, you might not have the strength to demand better choices!
Little wonder that disabled people are rising up to challenge this reckless authorization of medical power. Imagine, when feeling unwell, your doctor offered you no treatment at all or treatment that makes things worse and then follows up with an offer of MAID as a “safe and legal” alternative to your miserable, painful life? That’s not healing. And it’s not care. It’s abandonment. It’s an expression of medical defeat.
I hope that you will write a letter to your local paper, your preferred national paper, or other news outlet in support of this new Court Challenge. It might look something like this:
Dear editor,
I am writing to express my support for the court challenge launched today by four national disability rights groups. People with disabilities should not have to avoid seeking medical treatment for fear that the doctor (or nurse, or social worker or therapist, or chaplain) will encourage or pressure them to seek MAID. They should not have “death” promoted to them as a legitimate therapy or treatment. They should not be made to feel that they’re being “selfish” for wanting to be alive.
People with disabilities, chronic illnesses and other conditions that make them “different” in some way from the mainstream have every right to exist on an equal basis with others in this country. They need and deserve supports and services that enable them to live their lives with true choice, dignity and autonomy. The social problems that they face should be eliminated — not the people!
I hope that your publication will cease to normalize MAID as a means of reducing medical or social costs. Promoting assisted death is not the way to tackle thorny and costly social problems. Efforts should be aimed at helping all people to live in conditions of full dignity and equality.
Sincerely,
[Your name, address, telephone number and/or other contact information]
Your letter might look and sound entirely different, which is a good thing. Choose your own words and your own writing style. You might want to tell a personal story that sheds light on the issues raised by this court challenge. Don’t be shy. The public needs to be challenged to think more deeply about how the existence of MAID for disabled people who are not dying adversely affects the lives of real people.
If you feel inclined, please send us a copy of your letter. Or if you see someone else’s letter in your local media, send that along too.
Oh, and it doesn’t have to be a letter! Every news outlet has published rules regarding Opinion/Editorial (OpEd) pieces that can be submitted for consideration. Some of them actually pay for well-written pieces that fall within their strict word count and other guidelines. There have been way too many of these stories told by MAID promoters — stories that romanticize MAID and aim to make anyone who sees the other side of it look cruel and heartless. But they need to hear the other side, so why not from YOU!
Because that’s what allies do.
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