Many MAiD Advocates Want Credit For Fixing Problems They Ignored For Decades

Meghan Schrader

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

I perceive a pattern of “MAiD” acolytes seeking “common ground” with disability rights opponents of “MAiD” while expecting levels of appreciation and respect they have not earned.

For example, I noticed that in their response to the September 2025 Atlantic article “Canada Is Killing Itself,” pro “MAiD” activists Paul Magennis and Kim Carlson asserted that “MAiD providers” regularly advocate for better services for their “patients.” They wrote:

“Yes, inequities in healthcare and social supports exist, and no one in the medical community knows this more than MAiD providers themselves. They have long demanded better resources for their patients, and they understand that the only way to prevent suffering rooted in those inequities is to fix the inequities directly.”

I am sure that there are a few instances of “MAiD providers” advocating for resources, but Carlson and Magennis claim that there is a widespread, longstanding pattern of that behavior. Do Maggenis and Carlson have any proof for that claim? Because that’s not the pattern that “MAiD” advocates have demonstrated throughout history.

For instance, the Accessible Canada Act, a watered-down version of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act that is not scheduled to be fully implemented until 2040, was passed in 2019, after the Carter decision legalized “MAiD” in 2015. The paltry “Canada Disability Benefit” was passed in 2023, after the legalization of “Track 2 MAiD” in 2021.

Powerful USA “MAiD” advocates who identify as social justice advocates have also largely ignored disabled people for decades.

It’s not that I haven’t encountered Oregon model “MAiD” supporters with a track record of supporting disability rights. But generally I think it’s clear that social justice leaders ignoring disability has contributed to “MAiD” supporters not understanding “Track 2 MAiD” as the bigoted act of systematically killing members of a marginalized group.

For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union has fought for “MAiD” for decades, but did not create a disability rights division until 2012, 92 years after the organization was founded.

The BC Civil Liberties Association, which could be considered the Canadian "sibling" of the ACLU, fought for Canada's expansive “MAiD” program for decades before releasing its first statement in support of disability rights in 2024, 62 years after the organization was founded in 1962. This happened after the organization’s legislative allies dismissed disabled “Track 2 MAiD” opponents’ efforts to prevent wrongful deaths as “moral panic.” It happened after anti Track 2 expert witnesses at the Special Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying hearings were “routinely talked over, ignored, argued with, and at times, openly disparaged by committee members in favour of amplifying the ideology of MAID expansionists and pro-MAID lobby groups.”

So, I wrote an X post pointing out that the BCCLA’s 2024 statement was made after decades of ignoring disabled people. One X user who is part of the small minority of disabled people who supports Track 2 MAiD and led the effort to get the BCCLA to release their statement criticized my lack of “forgiveness.” They said, “You were not there when they realized the harm they had done and started to help.”

The key phrase there is started to help. The BCCLA’s choice to abandon disabled people for decades while advocating for “MAiD” played a critical role in creating a world where disabled people are offered “MAiD” before they are offered support. You can forgive people without making them your compadres.

There are many non-lethal examples of civil rights advocates ignoring disabled people, regardless of those advocates’ position on “MAiD.” For instance, researchers who published a 2023 study documenting life-threatening healthcare discrimination against disabled children were not allowed to present their findings on a conference on healthcare equity. The conference organizers said, "that's not the kind of inequity we're looking for.”

I’ve observed this pattern of social justice advocates ignoring serious disability rights violations throughout my life. Between 2011 and 2015 I was a member of a United Church of Christ congregation with a very kind pastor who strongly supported Oregon model “MAiD.” Every six months she centered church activities around a different civil rights issue, but unfortunately disabled people were the only group that she didn’t include. I have affection for that pastor; but I think that such omissions indicate “MAiD” advocates’ unpreparedness to address the abuses that are interwoven with “MAiD.”

When “MAiD” proponents dismiss disability justice opposition to “MAiD” as “moral panic” and decide that a few wrongful deaths is an acceptable price to pay for “autonomy,” they are taking a deep history of mainstream civil rights activists tolerating ableism to a lethal extreme.

In short, “MAiD” proponents like to brag about ending suffering, but for generations leading “MAiD” advocates have let disabled people suffer.