“From Operation Yellow Ribbon To Track 2 MAiD: What Happened to Canada?”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and an EPC-USA board member.

I was 18 on 9/11. Unfortunately it was one of the defining events of my generation. The Onion published a special issue about 9/11 shortly after it happened, and one of the stories was “American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie.” That’s what it felt like to many of us who lived through it. The way that terrorists had managed to attack the United States was so bizarre and horrific that witnessing it felt like living in an action film that was not at all entertaining and had a very tragic ending.

But as the world reeled from the surreal violence and horror, stories of courage began to emerge. I think that these stories are relevant to discussions about assisted suicide because they exemplify a commitment to love and collaboration across political divides. Most of the world’s initial response to 9/11 contrasts sharply with parts of our bitterly divided, ableist world committing what Frederich Engles would call “Social Murder”: subjecting disabled people to lack of economic support and opportunity so severe that disabled people die an early, tragic death, whether by “MAiD” or some other preventable cause. But stories of courage on 9/11 demonstrate that the world does not have to be that way.

As a disabled person and disability justice advocate, one 9/11 story that brings tears of gratitude to my eyes is the story of Ed Beya and Abe Zelmanowitz. Abe was an Orthodox Jew and Ed was a Christian. The two men were coworkers and best friends. Ed was a quadriplegic. The two men were in the same office when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Abe could have evacuated the building right away, but he insisted on waiting until Ed could be evacuated too. The two men were together when the building fell. Ed’s disability and the lack of social structures to evacuate him could have caused Ed to die alone that day. But because of Abe’s love and selflessness, Ed died with a friend by his side.

A second act that I continue to be moved by is President Bush’s statement to Muslims in his State of the Union speech:

“I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful. And those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying in effect to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.”

Regardless of what national policy mistakes might have been made after 9/11, this was our President doing the right thing. The days after September 11th involved Muslims and everyone who people thought looked like a Muslim being at increased risk of prejudice and violence. It must be very difficult to have one’s faith associated with the worst terrorist attack in world history, and President Bush’s defense of average Muslims was an important example of ethical leadership that contrasts sharply with the broader “MAiD” movement’s willing to sacrifice disabled people to its agenda.

But the stirring 9/11 story that I think is most relevant to discussions about “MAiD” is Canada’s Operation Yellow Ribbon. When the USA closed its airspace on 9/11, Canada allowed hundreds of US bound flights to land at its airports in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, British Columbia, Yukon, New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Quebec.

Canadians provided the stranded passengers with shelter, clothing, food and anything else that they needed. It was Canada being the United State’s good neighbor and coming to our aid during one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history. I love the 2017 musical “Come From Away,” about Gander, Newfoundland’s efforts to help people on the redirected flights. It powerfully tells this story of the human spirit triumphing over evil and destruction.

I am confused by the contrast between Operation Yellow Ribbon in 2001 and the advent of “Track 2 MAiD” in 2021. I understand why the harm of “Track 1 MAiD” might not seem obvious, but why don’t more Canadians see the wrongful deaths of disabled people dying via “Track 2 MAiD” as an emergency? During Operation Yellow Ribbon, Canadian businesses donated food and people took the stranded passengers into their homes. Why don’t Canadian businesses donate food to disabled people who are thinking of dying by assisted suicide because they can’t afford to eat three times a day? Why not create a system where Canadians host disabled people who need a clean environment in their homes?

I know this dichotomy is influenced by the average Canadian’s lack of education about disability justice, but still, one would think that Canadians who recognized the evil of 9/11 and the necessity of helping the people affected by it would be able to perceive the evil of medicalizing disabled people’s suicides and would do everything they could to save those people’s lives.

As a disabled American, I think Americans can reciprocate Canada’s 9/11 generosity by doing what we can to conduct our own Operation Yellow Ribbon for our disabled neighbors to the North. There are limits to what one person can do. But from interacting with disabled Canadians on #DisabilityTwitter, I think that those of us wishing to be friends to our Canadian neighbors can look to the example of Abe Zelmanowitz, who stayed by his friend Ed Beya’s side in their darkest hour, such as by putting the money we can spare into disabled Canadians’ PayPal accounts and lending a listening ear to disabled Canadians who are in crisis. We can resist the dehumanization of disabled people of all socioeconomic backgrounds worldwide, just as Bush’s 2001 state of the union speech resisted the dehumanization of Muslims. As “MAiD” opponents honor disabled people who have died by assisted suicide because they couldn’t get the support that they needed, we can picture each person’s face and story in our minds, like we acknowledged the loss of each individual on 9/11.

9/11 was one catastrophic display of the cruelty and hate that exists in this world; cruelty and hate so deep that people are eager to kill fellow human beings. Almost nothing is comparable to 9/11, but 9/11 and Track 2 MAiD are both expressions of violence, whether that be the obvious brutality of 9/11 or the insidious violence of creating systems that incentivize disabled people to seek euthanasia. The cruelty of Track 2 MAiD is cloaked by a patina of “compassion” but Track 2 “MAiD” and 9/11 are grounded in an ideology of disposability—that some lives are expendable.

But the human community doesn’t have to accept a society built on that philosophy. So, I think that “MAiD” opponents can honor 9/11 by doing what we can to rebel against our current “9/11 world” where marginalized people are systematically pushed toward assisted suicide or death in general. Instead we can work for an Operation Yellow Ribbon world, where people exhibit the collective responsibility to give marginalized individuals the care and solidarity they need.