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FREE Euthanasia for the Disabled in Canada

FREE Euthanasia for the Disabled in Canada

Last updated on: February 11, 2021 at 11:19 am by Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

FREE Euthanasia for the Disabled in Canada 2021-02-11T11:19:56-05:00 Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC

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The Canadian government is proposing a law that will push euthanasia on the disabled. This is serious ableism and discrimination. I have repeatedly noted that approving euthanasia or assisted suicide is a slippery slope where society slowly decides more and more “undesirables” will be killed via these means. Canada has already had two particularly troublesome issues since approving “Medical Aid in Dying.” First, the law was presented as assisted suicide, but 99.95% of cases were euthanasia. Second, they pointed out how killing off the sick saved millions of dollars, as if that is a good thing.

No lethal injections (CC0 Maria Oswalt on Unsplash)

Now, we have a new story of a new bill to expand who can die this way. This law is eugenic. CTV News reported on this story. I’m going to have their text indented with my comments in between.

Free Euthanasia Pushes It on the Disabled

Sarah Jama of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario [said]: “(The bill) makes it more accessible for people with mental health disabilities to kill themselves as a form of treatment without making mental health supports free.” […]

This bill completely misunderstands the value of each disabled person’s life. It’s ableism. If we are going to allow people to euthanize themselves, we must try everything else first. Forcing someone to pay a lot for mental health while giving them euthanasia for free pushes them towards it, rather than away from it.

Bill C-7 would eliminate the requirement that death be “reasonably foreseeable” to qualify for an assisted death.

When the first assisted suicide and euthanasia bill passed, you needed to be close to death. Now, the proposed bill would allow people – like the disabled – to get euthanasia in other circumstances. This is quite problematic as then professionals will present it as a nice option for those groups.

One System for the Rich

Jama said legislators are listening to assisted-death advocacy groups she describes as predominantly representing wealthier white people, who she argues are pushing for expanded access to the procedure because they are afraid to live with disability.

She said meanwhile, they have been neglecting the voices of people with disabilities who are living in poverty…

“A lot of the people he consulted were upper middle-class white people, doctors and lawyers, and that’s not representative of the disability community,” she said.

When a large issue is people who can’t afford the care needed to avoid assisted suicide, we need to include voices of those who struggle to pay for such things. Disability looks different to different people. Disability is not the end of life but another chapter in a person’s life. Many who became disabled later have lived far more than they expected before the disability.

This also goes back to the value of the life of disabled people.

This Bill Will Kill

Krista Carr, the vice-president of Inclusion Canada, told the news conference Monday that the focus should be on suicide prevention.

“This bill has got to be stopped, or it will end the life of people,” she said.

“It will end the life of way too many people with disabilities who feel they have no other options.”

This is the real issue. If a bill like this passes, then disabled people will die. We can affect choices by how they are presented. If one option is free and the other costs thousands of dollars you don’t have, then the choice is obvious. In a situation where unfortunately euthanasia is legal, we need to fight against it being pushed in ways like this.

Conclusion

Please pray for Canada and its dangerous experiments with euthanasia. If you are Canadian, please fight this. Just like we can work for abortion laws that are more restrictive if not perfect, we can work for euthanasia or assisted suicide laws that are more restrictive, even if they still allow it in some cases.

This also goes back to my thesis that pro-life and disability rights groups need to work together. Either one on their own may not have enough clout to change this law, but a coordinated effort could prevent it from passing.

Note: Please support me on Patreon so I can keep writing on themes like this. Thank you in advance.

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