Traditional Iconoclast

Following up on last week’s post on MAiD, this week I offer four more links covering three perspectives.

Canadians with Disabilities

“We should not be offering wider access to euthanasia until every Canadian that needs it has a truly viable option: access to excellent palliative care (only accessible to 30 per cent of us) or optimal life assistance for the disabled. But C-7 will, shamefully, make Canada one of the most MAiD-friendly countries in the world.”
– Barbara Kay, “Wider access to assisted dying in Canada willbe catastrophic for the disabled,” National Post

“When life-ending interventions are normalized for people who are not terminally ill or suffering at the end of their lives, such legislative provisions tend to rest on – or draw strength from – ableist assumptions about the inherent ‘quality of life’ or ‘worth’ of the life of a person with a disability,” they say in a statement issued Monday by the UN Human Rights Council. “Disability is not a burden or a deficit of the person. It is a universal aspect of the human condition,” they add.
– Joan Bryden, “UN human rights experts alarmed by trend toward assisted dying for non-terminal conditions,” Globe and Mail

Canadians with Mental Illness & BIPOC Canadians

“In the next few weeks, people from all sides of this debate will bring personal testimony to bear. And whether they support or oppose the expansion of MAID, a simple truth remains: This is a country that continues to fail in respecting the humanity of people with disabilities. And rather than find strength of character to improve ourselves, the Canadian government is set to fall back on egregious historical precedent by offering death instead. Where, I ask, is the dignity in that?”
– Andray Domise, “Canada’s proposed expansion of assisted-death threatens to push the mentally ill out the door,” Globe and Mail

Conscientious Objectors

“On assisted death, the rights of the patient have been the primary focus of lawmakers, regulators, courts, academics and the media to a degree that has obscured and eroded other fundamental interests at stake — specifically, the freedom not to participate in killing.”
– Brian Bird and Christina Lamb, “Assisted dying legislation must reconcile the rights of those who object to the practice,” National Post
(Dr. Bird is an assistant professor in the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC; Dr. Lamb is a bioethicist and assistant professor in the faculty of nursing at the UofA.)

Indigenous Canadians