The Federal Government introduced Bill C-7. This is a bill to amend the Criminal Code of Canada with regards to medical assistance in dying (MAiD).
The amendment seeks to create two streams with regards to MAiD. The first would be that the person requesting MAiD has a terminal illness or have a foreseeable death. The second stream would be for people with disabilities whose death is not foreseeable and want access MAiD.
For people with a foreseeable death, this bill would amend the 10-day waiting period as most feel that making someone wait is inhumane, and it would make it so only one person needs to witness the individual making the request for MAiD.
For people with disabilities who do not have a foreseeable death, this bill requires a waiting period of 90 days to assess the persons eligibility which could be shortened depending on the circumstances.
While this sounds good, some are taking issue with the bill. Jeff Preston is an Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at Kings University College and he explained how he has concerns with the bill.
“The Canadian government is moving forward to make it easier for disabled people to self-select out under the guise of choice, under the guise liberty, and individual freedoms. We are giving disabled people a way out. My problem with this, all things being equal, is if this was really about fair and honest choice, I would have no problem. But on the one hand, the Canadian government is making it easier for people to die. While on the other hand, what has the Canadian government done to make it easier for disabled people to live? Because the answer to that is much much smaller,” said Preston.
He spoke about how people with disabilities live in poverty, have a hard time accessing healthcare and equipment that they need, have a hard time finding an affordable and safe place to live, and are trapped in a world filled with inaccessibility.
When it comes to MAiD, we tend to think of people wanting MAiD as they are suffering. But Preston highlighted how people in the disabled community are not suffering in the way in which we would think when discussing people seeking MAiD. He feels that this bill centers out people with disabilities in a way that looks at them as if they are suffering and that “life with a disability is seen as so awful, so terrible” that they should be allowed to end their lives.
When we think about suffering, we think about bodily pain. But when it comes to people with disabilities, a lot of the suffering is from things that are outside of the body.
Preston said that disabled people are suffering from “living in abject poverty because things like the Ontario Disability Support Program basically require you to live in poverty in order to maintain on the program. We suffer because employers regularly pass over disabled employees because they’re concerned that they will be too expensive, that won’t be as qualified, that they’re going to take more sick days. All of which obviously is not true. We suffer because we can’t get into a lot of the buildings that everyone else enjoys. That public space is not public for a lot of people with physical disabilities. So, we suffer from isolation. We suffer from the isolation of lack of accessible transit. Disabled people suffer each and every single day absolutely.”
He feels that instead of allowing people to end their lives that we should first work at making their lives better. Such as providing disabled people with the things they need, making things more accessible, understanding the value of disabled people within the community, and lifting them out of poverty.
But he also feels that the choice is being made for disabled people. He feels that the ways that we do not provide, help, or fix the systemic issues of ableism and inaccessibly in our community shows the choices we are making when it comes to disabled people.
“In a system where we don’t provide people with the things that they need, the choice is being made for us. But that choice is being made for us on a budgetary line as opposed to the person who pushes the vial into the needle.”
Furthermore, “I would say that Bill C-7 is a eugenic piece of legislation. It is a neo-eugenic piece of legislation. The state might not be killing us but under the guise of choice they’re helping to eliminate disabled people.”
Preston also highlighted that while the bill would allow people with disabilities to be able to choose MAiD, it would not allow for people who had a mental illness to partake.
However, people within the disabled population have a higher risk of suicidal ideations. And Preston spoke of how when people who suffer from mental illness say that they want to die we step in and try to save them. But when a person in a wheelchair says they want to die the system says it is their choice.
As of right now, the bill has been introduced and gone through the first reading in the House of Commons.
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