{"id":236582,"date":"2020-12-21T15:48:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T21:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=236582"},"modified":"2020-12-21T13:21:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T19:21:51","slug":"people-disabilities-speak-assisted-suicide-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/people-disabilities-speak-assisted-suicide-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"People with disabilities speak out against assisted suicide expansion in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

As Canada moves to expand eligibility<\/a> to assisted suicide, people with disabilities are speaking out. Bill C-7<\/a> would expand euthanasia to include those whose deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable,” which essentially would allow someone to kill themselves due to disability.<\/p>\n

Amy Hasbrouck, founder and executive director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, told the Catholic Register<\/a>\u00a0she hopes the bill fails. \u201cAs a society, we have a policy to prevent suicides,\u201d she said, \u201cexcept in the case of medical aid in dying.\u201d By striking the “reasonably foreseeable” language from the assisted suicide legislation, Hasbrouck says any<\/em> person with a disability qualifies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get sick you are going to be (disabled). You\u2019re not going to have the same kinds of options that non-disabled people have,” she said. \u201cIt\u2019s an inequitable application of suicide prevention, based on the idea that life with a disability is a fate worse than death.”<\/p>\n

Anyone deemed to have emotional, psychological or physical suffering technically qualifies for assisted suicide. But Hasbrouck argues that doctors would react differently to a young, able-bodied person than they would someone with a severe disability. A healthy person who claims he is suffering and wants to die would be directed to suicide prevention outreach and support, while a disabled person would be encouraged and allowed to kill himself.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Euthanasia expert in the Netherlands expects deaths to double in a decade<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For Jeff Preston, a King\u2019s University College disability studies professor who uses a wheelchair, laws such as these encourage the mindset that disability is a burden. \u201cWe have got to understand that we live in this culture that routinely, every day, is telling disabled people in very overt ways and also some very subversive ways that their lives don\u2019t have value, that they are suffering, that it\u2019s not worth it, that they are a burden on people,\u201d he said. \u201cOh geez, my wife \u2014 her life is different because she\u2019s married to somebody with a disability. My parents lives were different because they raised a boy with a physical disability. There were all these challenges. It\u2019s hard not to see yourself as the cause of these problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill C-7 does require people opting for suicide to be told of their options, including counseling, mental health, disability support, and community services, as well as the option for palliative care. But as Preston points out, this is all but meaningless if people aren’t able to access those services.<\/p>\n

Preston is not the only one pointing out this issue. A\u00a0United Nations report<\/a> found numerous instances of people with disabilities who were pressured into euthanasia or forced into nursing homes, at the mercy of a court system that does not reinforce their rights.<\/p>\n

Preston’s fear is that people with disabilities will opt for euthanasia simply out of despair, and more needs to be done to ensure they don’t reach that point. “If you\u2019re willing to stand up in the House of Commons and vote to allow people to die, then you are now also responsible for similarly standing up to ensure that people have the things they need in order to live,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a> for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Canada moves to expand eligibility to assisted suicide, people with disabilities are speaking out. Bill C-7 would expand euthanasia to include those whose deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable,” which essentially would allow someone to kill themselves due to disability. Amy Hasbrouck, founder and executive director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, told the Catholic Register\u00a0she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":236583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7,5,3473],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nPeople with disabilities speak out against assisted suicide expansion in Canada<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bill C-7 would expand euthanasia to include those whose deaths are not "reasonably foreseeable," allowing someone to kill themselves due to disability.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/people-disabilities-speak-assisted-suicide-canada\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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