I’m struggling with whether I have the spoons and emotional bandwith to write an article on Assisted Dying policies. It is such a complicated issue and people have big feelings about it (understandably).

While I debate this in my monkey mind - I’m going to share a post I wrote on another social media site to explain why as a disabled person in Canada - I have concerns that medical assistance in dying has become dangerous.

People outside of Canada are unaware what our program has turned into - so I hope this will shed some light on it and help others recognize WHY I’m so torn on this issue:

I’m going to tell the story of “Kat” - a young woman with EDS (which I also have) living in British Columbia. She needed pain management, palliative care and a family doctor - but was unable to access these basic medical options.

She finally applied for MAiD thinking it would open up treatment options - because an ethical program would do just that. I know it sounds strange to apply for death as a means of getting treatment - but in Canada our law says ‘all options must be exhausted before MAiD’. Many people with treatable conditions apply thinking that if approved to die - our system will expedite the care needed to live.

What’s worse - her death was then misrepresented and romanticized in a video advertisement about the benefits of MAiD. The fact that she wanted to live and was denied medical care that could have saved her was conveniently left out.

Why do we need to romanticize assisted death? People who are trying to silence disabled voices should ask themselves that question. Most people agree letting a patient in unbearable suffering choose when they die is compassionate. It shouldn’t NEED a PR push.

Perhaps it’s because the powers that be are trying to inoculate the public so they won’t notice when more and more people with treatable conditions and disabilities start dying? So they craft a narrative about how peaceful and joyful it is?

No amount of PR or softly lit videos can change the fact that people with disabilities are dying who don’t WANT to die. People are fighting for years for medical care - being denied and left to suffer - and then presented with MAiD as the “solution”.

I’m in no way suggesting we not allow people the right to die - but we MUST centre the voices of those most at risk of harm and abuse. We can’t keep dismissing the concerns of disabled people just because we MAY want the option when our time comes.

The lack of outrage over deaths like “Kat” show how little respect there is for the lives of disabled people. How many people think we’re “better off dead” and are certain if they became disabled - they wouldn’t want to live

You can’t possibly know what you would want until it happens to you. Many people think disability is worse than death - until it happens to them. Then they realize that we can and do have full lives and WANT to keep living them.

Until you’ve gone through it - you shouldn’t presume to tell us how to feel about it. I don’t judge others for wanting the option - don’t judge me for calling out the ways it puts me at increased risk of coercion, loss of medical care and premature death.

We must hold the system accountable. If someone can be helped - we have a moral responsibility to at least TRY and help them before shepherding them to their death.

If more people realized the dangers of coercion - and cared about disabled lives - there would be more outage.

Please listen, learn & put aside your hypothetical scenarios - we must deal with what is currently happening We have to find a way to protect people like me. People like “Kat”. Those deemed “undesirable” or economically inactive. If we don’t - more of us will die.

I support the right to die - but let’s make sure we’re also providing people the right to live.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/easier-to-let-go-without-support-b-c-woman-approved-for-medically-assisted-death-speaks-out-1.5937496

#MAiD #assisteddying #euthanasia #ableism #discrimination #eds #disability #disabilityrights