We Got MAiD (euthanasia) in the Disability Community

By Stephen C.Barns
Disability Culture Consultant 

Disability does not discriminate, it is not based on your race, creed, shape, gender, or language that you speak.

Since the beginning of time people with disabilities have been told by society that we are cursed, broken, that we need to be fixed or managed, a group to be pitied, when we fight back against these negative narratives, we are labeled as troubled or angry.

Usually when a child is born a doctor gives a clean bill of health and everyone goes about their lives, when someone is born and labeled defective instead of a world of possibilities there is a world of limits, a world of doom and gloom.

Doctors told my family I would grow up to be a vegetable, okay what a carrot, or broccoli, no I wouldn’t be able to communicate, feed myself, or I wouldn’t be conscious.

I am not what some may consider the poster person for the disability community and I don’t speak for all in the community or all disability issues as we are all unique individuals.

Generally the people in my circle, over the years, didn’t really treat me as though I was disabled, they encouraged me. I may have wanted to try something like wrestling in high school or dreams like going to film school and being a writer and a director.

North American culture at the time basically encouraged people to enter high school then you go to college or university to study for your career.

So I went to a so-called guidance counselor who instantly told me I would never be able to be a writer, director, because my english is horrible and with my learning disability and physical disability I wouldn't be able to go to film school…

I and my circle did not accept this, and I proceeded to go about my high school experience and dove head first into local artistic independent films, other writing, and painting as I planned to go to college.

However life took a detour in my last 18 months of high school, I experienced a family event that was traumatic it triggered a big shift which I had no say or control over…

I also was transitioning not only into adulthood but into a big oppressive, discriminatory, ableist, abusive struggle. My experience was Systemically broken because there is no question the systems of governments are designed to oppression and therefore to kill the people within the disability.

I became old enough to receive and manage my own money in the form of a fixed income monthly payment in my province called The Ontario Disability Support Program or ODSP for short.

Which at the time was and still is less than $1000 a month for myself, I am fortunate in that whole time that my rent was reasonable because I was either living with a member of a circle or I was living somewhere that my rent was geared to income but money was still tight and only getting tighter with inflation.

People who receive ODSP are 40% below the Canadian poverty line, well that sucks. I want to work and so do my peers however if we can’t find or given the opportunities or just can’t work period we shouldn’t be vilified or punished for not being able to quote contribute to a society that wants to pretend those of us with disabilities don’t exist.

I tried time and time again to look for work and educational opportunities, I did assessments, resume edits, even looking for volunteer positions. I was dismissed for both opportunities even as I was told to go look for one or the other.

I couldn’t find opportunities, so I tried to create my own opportunities, some good ideas, some bad. They were all hard earned and some painful, but now I have found a path to my spiritual, artistic, mental health recovery, which won’t be complete till my natural death.

I go back and forth on when my recovery began, however I can say a big piece of my recovery map is still ongoing and most likely will be for the rest of my life, is self-advocacy and not by choice.

Elders and other advocates in the disability community, let alone my life experiences, taught me about what it means to be a member of the disability community and historical reputations systemic basis.

I can say without a doubt that the biggest source of my mental health struggles is the way my peers, family, and myself continue to be treated and reminded we do not seem to matter.

We've come across the statement that if we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it, yet when it comes to the disability community, the rest of society seems to have a short memory.

We as a society are not far from ninety years ago when Hitler saw us as defective and wanted us to die off, as we couldn’t work or contribute, whatever that means?

Similarly, rather than build more homes and other accessible buildings and vehicles, instead governments of Canada would rather help to die than to live.

I’ve seen peers die under forty and alone, in supportive living, group homes, nursing/long Term Care homes and other institutions of today for the disability community in Canada.

There are still institutions in Canada whether they are built for the purpose of warehousing people with disabilities or not. There are also makeshift supportive living, group homes or nursing/long term care homes, hospitals and even jails.

This is nothing new, think of the line, Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses, in Charles Dickens's' A Christmas Carol, One met advocates, read through the disability studies and the mind's eye opens.

I have been encouraged by individuals on social media to kill myself, others who are not members of the disability community have informed me if they had to be dependent on the government like me they’d kill themselves, not to mention, having to battle misinformation about being on O.D.S.P, an being herassed for receiving said fixed income.

Years ago a member of my circle told me no one will pity me because I’m disabled. I don’t want handouts, I am willing to work in any way I could and again I tried, I looked, I created, I failed, I learned.

No one wants pity, I and others want the right to live and dream however my peers and I can begin to feel trapped as our peers graduate, meet partners, get jobs and build lives, it’s hard to not internalize the way society continues to see us.

The death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976 partially because it was coming to light that the wrong individuals were being sentenced to death, it now if you’re disabled society encourages us to go to our deathbeds why?

I know of two peers in the community in Quebec as well in Ontario, who have applied for MAiD because of changes in the Healthcare system in the form of hours being cut during the years of the Covid pandemic along with the loss of dignity and autonomy…

There are peers who applied and died by MAiD, once Premire Doug Ford called for Personal Support Workers (P.S.W.) who work two jobs providing care/ independence living support, they can only work one location.

Once that happened workers chose to work their more secure jobs with hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions, therefore people receiving more direct self-managed government funded programs such as the Ontario Direct Fund Program were left without support/employees and applied and carried out MAiD.

There is a man in Ontario who applied for MAiD because once he became forced out of his home due to corporate landlords doing what they do, out of fear of living on the street with his physical challenges.

A community banded together to help him find this gentleman and now he doesn’t want to die, there is a community in New Brunswick there is a village of 99 homes to help people build on their recovery.

Maid is worse than Hitler’s Nazi Germany because instead of being sought out and killed we are being led to our unnatural deaths under the guise of choice.

Jacqueline Abernathy opposing Colorado assisted suicide expansion Bill SB 068

Dear Honorable Members of the Colorado State Assembly Senate Health & Human Services Committee,

Jacqueline Abernathy

I write today to urge you to oppose SB 068 and its blatant attempt to welcome suicide tourism in Colorado and put Coloradans at risk by expanding assisted suicide access to non-residents. I implore you as a public policy scholar fearful of how Colorado could betray the safety of its own most vulnerable citizens simply to put other citizens at risk as well. Your bill is a gross overstep to endanger citizens in other states while increasing the threat to your own constituents. 

I speak as an expert on this very topic, a bioethicist with a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy and a bibliography of scholarly peer-reviewed publications on assisted suicide and end-of-life medical decision-making. Where your duty is to the people of Colorado, entertaining the overreach inherent to SB 068 betrays the health and safety of those you are called to protect. This is why all eyes are upon you and non-residents like myself, who have an equal entitlement to weigh in on your decision in Colorado.

Regardless of what instigates it, suicide is generally an impulsive act of desperation, most often borne of fear. Enabling hasty irreversible decisions to self-destruct is not meant to limit any negative outcomes to the patient through delays. This bill will simply accommodate non-residents who travel to Colorado to obtain a deadly prescription from a total stranger who will only have them as a patient as long as it takes to dispense the lethal dose. SB 068 would create a market for these niche practices that do nothing but dispense deadly suicide drugs. The provisions negated in SB 068 include competent physician requirements, reflection and review periods, second opinions about prognoses and mental capacity, and the independence of physician assessments of each patient’s case. This bill eschews any semblance of an existing doctor-patient relationship by a physician well acquainted with the patient and their particular set of circumstances. SB 068 does not feign to value doctor opinions at all, striking every use of the word “physician” in favor of provider in order to allow lesser-qualified non-physicians to dispense the deadly poisons in a fraction of the time. This appears to accommodate specialty death clinics of ideologically pro-euthanasia on-demand doctors and nurses who can blindly validate each other’s conclusions out of their position that death on demand is a personal right for those who meet any legal or ethical criteria. This directly affronts the reason for the Colorado law to require a consultative review: as a safeguard to independently assess and concur with the attending physician’s conclusion that a patient is indeed terminally ill and mentally competent without signs of coercion or duress.

SB 068’s embrace of logistics to enable vendor suicide businesses negates any remaining provisions meant to protect Colorado citizens as total smokescreen. Whereas 14 days was the length of time for a resident advised by their existing doctor, surrounded by their family, greater community, extended support network and familiar resources, now anyone can visit a clinic for a rubber-stamped approval to kill themselves within two days. It strikes time for an adequate review of each patient’s case, limiting opportunity for further reflection by patients. There is no time for scrutiny or basic due diligence regarding someone’s alleged terminal prognosis and increases the likelihood of patient misdiagnosis and the possibility of treatable depression. A review of studies also determined that physicians’ medical diagnoses were often incorrect, both in declaring a patient to have a terminal condition and estimating their life expectancy at six months or fewer. Another study of physicians who were willing to prescribe the lethal dose found that 27 percent were not confident that they could determine if a patient only had six months or fewer to live. There is also substantial evidence that many patients opting to end their lives suffer from treatable depression and physicians report that patients for whom interventions were made (like treating depression) were more likely to change their minds about wanting to end their lives.

Whereas tax exportation to increase state budgets by encouraging tourism is within your scope as lawmakers, this would only increase revenue at the invaluable health and safety expense of those citizens who no longer have any safeguards thanks to enabling non-residents, but furthermore, this does not factor in the actual monetary and human costs of cleaning up after the deceased. 

The bill assumes that non-residents would just be trying to subvert their own state laws against assisted suicide but how many might be trying to subvert loved ones back home as well or have no one to return to anyway? While it is true that most suicides (77%) occur at home, those who travel here from their homes out-of-state just to obtain deadly drugs because SB 068 designed this option for that express purpose that they will not leave alive. Where do suicidal people who don’t have as ready access to their home as a place to end their lives? National parks are prime suicide destinations as is, particularly in the west where suicide the second leading cause of death, costs over a quarter-million dollars in recovery and identification efforts per victim. The Colorado National Monument attracts dozens of despondent people who self-destruct each year, but with the means to death in their pocket, any public place can become the spot someone chooses to die if they are inclined. There can only be added costs and psychological trauma to the Colorado residents who will face the aftermath of inviting this added violence. Mere exposure to suicide often leads to suicide among the responders and survivors, and this is true of those who discover a deceased loved one at home. For every quick, exported suicide that was started in Colorado but completed in a neighboring state for those residents to deal with the unpleasant consequences, there are sure to be secret, expedited death plans of residents enabled by SB 068. Making suicide so quick and easy can only mean more shocked survivors of hasty death plans by Coloradans hiding their intentions, leaving notes for their children or spouses explaining that they sought a hasty overdose from a nurse in Denver just days after learning their diagnosis because they “didn’t want to be a burden,” never knowing that their grieving survivors would give anything to have had a chance to tell them how desperately their family wanted to care for them for what precious time they had left.

In a state that ranks among the highest for per capita suicides (46 out of 50), so this would merely add a so-called legitimate form of self-violence to what your state calls a “public health crisis” and cost enormous sums of tax dollars to prevent. SB 068 only serves to usher in more death and destruction of Colorado residents by inviting the death and destruction of non-residents. Attempting to usurp the laws of other state legislatures to impose your will can only be done by endangering and burdening the citizens you are called to protect. 

Do your duty. Vote NO on SB 068.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Harvey Abernathy, Ph.D., M.S.S.W.
Dallas, Texas

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - February 27 Press Conference concerning euthanasia for mental illness.

MEDIA ADVISORY

Press Conference: Tuesday February 27, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.

Location: Parliamentary Press Gallery – Room 135B West Block

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is hosting a press conference on February 27 at 10 a.m. in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Speakers will include human rights lawyer Garifalia Milousis, Montréal Family Physician, Dr. Paul Saba, Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the EPC and the Hon. Ed Fast, who sponsored Bill C-314, the mental health protection act that would have amended the law to prevent medical assistance in dying (MAID) for mental illness alone.

Garifalia Milousis

Bill C-62, the bill to postpone the establishment of MAID for mental illness alone, passed in the House of Commons and is being debated in the Senate. The EPC urges the Senate to pass Bill C-62 but it is our position that Canada’s MAID law must be amended to prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

Garifalia Milousis is a 27-year-old lawyer who has struggled with depression. After the passing of Bill C-7 in March 2021, which permitted MAID for mental illness alone, she decided to tell her story. Garifalia believes that unless you have experienced mental illness, you cannot understand how patronizing it is to hear people distinguish between MAID and suicidality.

Dr Paul Saba

Dr. Paul Saba will state (in French) that 90% of people who attempt a suicide and receive treatment do not want to die. Most psychiatrists do not support euthanasia (“MAID”) for mental illness because of their concern for their vulnerable patients. It is also impossible to decide whether a mental health condition is irremediable.

Following the press conference there will be a rally on Parliament Hill from 11 a.m. until 12 noon. There will be time to personally interview the rally speakers.

Participation in the question and answer portion of this event is in person or via Zoom, and is for accredited members of the Press Gallery only. Media who are not members of the Press Gallery may contact pressres2@parl.gc.ca for temporary access.

Seuls les membres de la tribune parlementaire peuvent participer à la période de questions et réponses, qui aura lieu sur place et via Zoom. Les médias qui ne sont pas membres de la tribune parlementaire peuvent communiquer avec pressres2@parl.gc.ca pour obtenir l'accès temporaire.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Contact: Alex Schadenberg at 519-851-1434 or email alex@epcc.ca

EPC-USA Disability Rights Statement in STRONG OPPOSITION to New York Assisted Suicide Bill

Dear Members of the New York Assembly:

The EPC-USA has already submitted testimony regarding the social harms attached to assisted suicide legislation like A995A. However, given that assisted suicide’s negative impact is going to fall primarily on the disabled community, the EPC felt that we should submit a more detailed analysis of how assisted suicide undermines disability rights, and whose advice on this matter ought to be heeded by members of the Assembly.

Members of the EPC board with training in the fields of disability studies and advocacy have noted that some assisted suicide advocates are trying to hijack disability rights for their own purposes. For instance, an able-bodied man named Christopher Riddle has done pro-assisted suicide advocacy in New York while presenting himself as a “disability rights advocate.” Riddle is a colleague of Udo Schuklenk, one of the architects of Canada’s euthanasia program, and Riddle enthusiastically approves of that program.

Moreover, Riddle’s theories about disability rights have been reasonably criticized as lacking any empirical grounding in the experiences of disabled people. He has no experience or personal stake in the practical implications of his ideas.

Furthermore, Riddle’s scholarship dehumanizes disabled people who are harmed by assisted suicide; he frames anyone who might be harmed by assisted suicide as the equivalent of a car accident statistic. He asserts that harm that assisted suicide might cause for people with disabilities “ought not to be of special concern.” Hence, Riddle is willing to sacrifice people with disabilities for the right to die movement’s agenda; he is not the “disability rights advocate” he claims to be.

For a more accurate understanding of how the disabled community has approached the issue of assisted suicide, we encourage you to watch a video created by disability studies ethicist Harold Braswell about disability rights opposition to assisted suicide. Braswell has studied the right to die issue extensively.

There are other very important facts that legislators must take into account when considering how assisted suicide is impacting the disabled community:

The American Association of Suicidology made a 2017 statement saying that “MAiD” was not suicide. But in 2023 the AAS had to retract that statement because it was used in the 2019 Truchon decision that expanded assisted suicide to disabled Canadians, which was opposed by the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.The consequences of the AAS’s statement are an example of how green lighting assisted suicide for the terminally ill easily results in violence against people with disabilities.

In 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of People with Disabilities asserted that all assisted suicide laws violate its Convention On The Rights of People with Disabilities.

Peer-reviewed research establishes that people are more likely to view suicide as acceptable if the victim is disabled, and people with disabilities often lack access to comprehensive suicide prevention care. This bill exacerbates that problem by laying the scaffolding for “MAiD” to become a substitute for the suicides of persons with disabilities.

Well-known right to die leader Thaddeus Mason Pope has tweeted that it’s good for disabled people to die by suicide; the director of Compassion and Choices appeared on Dr. Phil with Pope in 2023. If you pass this bill, you empower and reward a contingent of people who want disabled people’s suicides to be a “medical procedure.”

We urge you to allow A995A to die this session because regardless of its content, it rewards a movement that is hostile to people with disabilities. Exacerbating the oppression that disabled people already face so that the proponents can plan their deaths is unwise and unjust.

Sincerely,

Meghan Schrader, Disability Rights EPC-USA

Josephine L.A. Glaser, MD.,FAAFP

Colleen E. Barry, Chairperson

Kenneth Stevens, MD

William Toffler, MD

Gordon Friesen

Alex Schadenberg

Hawai'i expanded their assisted suicide law in 2023. Hawai'i assisted suicide deaths are increasing.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Hawai'i assisted suicide deaths have continually increased since legalization. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition expects greater increases in 2023 based on the fact that Hawai'i expanded their assisted suicide law in 2023 by passing House Bill 650.

According to the Hawai'i assisted suicide data, there were 55 assisted suicide deaths in 2022, which was up from 49 in 2021. We don't have the 2023 Hawai'i assisted suicide data yet.

For instance, California's assisted suicide deaths increased by 63% in 2022, after they expanded their assisted suicide law (Article).

As stated in an article that I published last year, (HB 650) expanded the Hawai'i assisted suicide law by reducing the waiting period, allowing non-physicians to approve and prescribe assisted suicide and expanding who can counsel someone for assisted suicide. HB 650 was signed into law on June 2, 2023.

HB 650 reduced the assisted suicide waiting period from 20 days to 5 days and it allowed the waiting period to be reduced to 48 hours when a person was deemed to be "near to death."

HB 650 also allowed non-physicians to approve and prescribe assisted suicide drugs and it expanded who was able to counsel a person who is considering assisted suicide. The expansion of assisted suicide providers was deemed necessary because very few physicians were willing to participate in assisted suicide.

Hawai'i, like most states that have legalized assisted suicide, passed their original assisted suicide law with "safeguards" that were designed to persuade legislators to vote for the bill.

Hawai'i debated and defeated assisted suicide bills almost every year until 2018, when the sponsor of the assisted suicide bill, included more "safeguards" than the Oregon law resulting in the bill passing.

The very first Hawai'i assisted suicide report (2019) included a push to remove "safeguards" in the law. I stated in my commentary that:

Even though assisted suicide was legal for less than one year, the assisted suicide lobby is promoting two options for expanding the assisted suicide law.

Hawai'i is the best example of how the assisted suicide lobby will support a "tight" bill to legalize assisted suicide and soon after introduce a bill to eliminate "restrictions."

More information on this topic:

• The assisted suicide lobby wants to legalize assisted suicide in your state and expand it later (Link).
  

EPC-USA - Contact New York elected representatives to oppose assisted suicide bills.

EPC – USA needs you to Contact elected representatives or members of the respective Health Committee's that are considering New York assisted suicide Bills (A995/S2445).

Choose one or two of the following points to state why you oppose assisted suicide.

Some of the reasons to Oppose Assisted Suicide.

• The Safeguards in the bill are part of a bait-and-switch tactic. Nearly every state that has legalized assisted suicide, soon after, expanded their law.
• The data shows that it's not about pain, but the fear of pain, the unknown, or challenging depression or feelings of hopelessness. 
• Not necessarily a peaceful death. The data shows that many of the deaths are painful and “burning” and often last a long time, with the longest recorded assisted suicide death being 104 hours. 
• There are cases of Insurance Companies denying care. 
• Studies prove that legalizing Assisted Suicide Spawns More Suicides and suicide attempts.  
• Marginalized people understand how Assisted Suicide can be pressured upon them rather than actual care. 
• As the cheapest state-sponsored “treatment,” assisted suicide diminishes patient choice and takes away patient autonomy. 
• Mistakes, Abuse, coercion. Elder abuse is a common problem already and will worsen with death making. 
• Assisted suicide combined with a struggling healthcare and home care system is a deadly mix for people who are economically poor, lonely, elderly, disabled, and historically marginalized in the healthcare system.

Contact Your Legislator

State Senate

NY State Senator contact information. (Link to the Members of the NY Senate).

NY Senate Health Committee: (Link to the Standing Health Committee).

State Assembly

NY State Assembly contact information (Link to the NY Members of the Assembly).

NY Standing Committee on Health:  (Link to the "Standing Committee on Health")

More information on this topic:

• The assisted suicide lobby wants to legalize assisted suicide in your state and expand the law later (Link). 
• The Nationalization of assisted suicide in America (Link).
• Vermont assisted suicide deaths more than quadruple (Link).