MAiD

A few weeks ago, while walking through the halls of the hospital where I work, I ran into the brother of a former patient. I asked him how his...

New reports from Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee (MDRC) raise questions about whether proper assessments, thorough exploration of suffering, and informed consent were consistently practised by MAiD clinicians.

Consideration of Canada

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities today concluded its review of the combined second and third periodic report of Canada, with Committee Experts commending the State’s plethora of accessible voting measures, while raising questions on persons with disabilities seeking access to medical assistance in dying and on persons with disabilities in the labour market.Floyd Morris, Committee Expert and Taskforce Member, said Canada should be commended for the plethora of voting measures put in place to accommodate persons with disabilities.

CCD is a national human rights organization of people with disabilities working for an accessible and inclusive Canada.

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A coalition of disability rights groups says it is launching a Charter challenge against a part of Canada's law on medical assistance in dying.

Despite dedicated organizing by the disability justice community, Bill C-7, which expanded “medical assistance in dying” to people whose death is not “reasonably foreseeable,” became law on March 17, 2021. CD spoke with Catherine Frazee and Gabrielle Peters about the meaning of C-7, the implicit ableism of pro-MAiD narratives, and the involvement by the left in disability justice.

Ableism and its “better dead than disabled” bias makes assisted dying a terrifying threat for too many people. They deserve safety from it.

Gabrielle Peters: The effort to widen eligibility for MAiD to include disabled people who are not actually dying is dangerous, unsettling and deeply flawed

I have not posted anything in quite some time and I apologize for that.

Gabrielle Peters: Many disabled Canadians have been forced into poverty by insufficient income support—especially true during the pandemic. Some are considering MAID because they "simply cannot afford to keep on living."

The question of whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying has recently come to the fore in debates about the legalisation of assisted dying. For example, it was central to critiques of the 2021 amendments made to Canada’s assisted dying law. The question of whether changes to a country’s assisted dying legislation lead to descents down slippery slopes has also come to the fore—as it does any time a jurisdiction changes its laws. We explore these two questions through the lens of Canada’s experience both to inform Canada’s ongoing discussions and because other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law. Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law has evolved through a journey from the courts to Parliament, back to the courts, and then back to Parliament. Along this journey the eligibility criteria, the procedural safeguards, and the monitoring regime have changed. In this article, we focus on the eligibility criteria. First, we explain the evolution of the law and what the eligibility criteria were at the various stops along the way. We then explore the ethical justifications for Canada’s new criteria by looking at two elements of the often-corrosive debate. First, we ask whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying of decisionally capable people with mental illnesses and people with disabilities as their sole underlying medical conditions. Second, we ask whether Canada’s journey supports slippery slope arguments against permitting assisted dying. All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

Parliament needs to decide whether the mentally ill should have access to assisted dying. But being mentally ill doesn’t mean being just suicidal.

This paper explores the recent expansion of medical assistance in dying to disabled people who are suffering intolerably but are not at the end of their lives. The paper argues that it is impossible to separate suffering caused by an irremediable disability and suffering caused by the impacts of systemic ableism, which include high rates of poverty, social isolation and exclusion for people with disabilities. The paper suggests that this expansion raises constitutional issues under s. 15 and s. 7 of the Charter because it is premised on a view that portrays disability as potentially worse than death and thus denies people with disabilities the protection of the criminal law that is provided to other Canadians. The paper concludes that there is no safe way for the state, through the medical system, to be involved in ending the lives of people with disabilities who are not otherwise dying.

sb. smith on Bill C-7: "This shameful bill, when it comes to the disabled community, it is an example of why it is increasingly necessary for financially-privileged (and especially white, financially-privileged) disabled people to confront and be forthcoming about their wealth and social status."

After decades battling ME/CFS, Marcia is going fully public in a desperate bid to secure her survival and fight for change