Why the “Choice” for Assisted Suicide is No Choice for Disabled People
No amount of maple syrup makes this pill easy to swallow.
This week Bill C7 seems pretty likely to be on its way to becoming law in Canada. It would amend a previous bill to make it easier for people with only a mental illness diagnosis to be included along with those “intolerably suffering who’s natural death is foreseeable.” The opposition formed a “Disability Filibuster” which was zoom-bombed by ableist Nazi imagery and pornographic imaging. The opposition, led by folks like Gabrielle Peters, believes, as do I and many in the disability community, that these bills codify the notion that disabled lives are not worth living and that increased investments should be made to support a path towards death, as opposed to investing in supports and services to make our lives on this planet easier.
Assisted Suicide Legislation is the monster under the bed for Disabled people. I’m pretty sure it looks like a demented doctor, or perhaps a mild-mannered mediocre bureaucrat, or a “well meaning” jogger who says “if I was like you, I’d want to die” when she passes you at the park.” Actually, it’s all of these things when you’re disabled, because the pressure to literally die, does not just come from one direction. (If it did, it would be so much easier to fight.)
A core tenet of the disability community values is self-determination. The right to make choices for yourself about your life. And while MAID (Medical Aid in Dying) plays like it’s giving people with disabilities a choice, in reality, it’s narrowing the chances, the opportunities, that people with disabilities have, because while the path to suicide is being expanded, access to services to keep disabled Canadians (and disabled people all around the world) alive, thriving, and in their communities, are not. And that’s how it’s happened in every nation that has passed similar legislation.
Whenever I’m asked why the DisCo is so passionate about this topic by the non-disableds, I respond with one single question……Why is it that when disabled people say they want to kill themselves because they can’t find affordable housing, or mental health care, that, instead of getting them supports & services to help them live, society and government legislate to make it easier for them to die?
When a majority of non-disabled people talk about suicide, we get them peer support, get them jobs, get them out in the community, meeting people, picking up hobbies, getting pets and plants. But when disabled people talk about being depressed and wanting to die, none of those options are included in an advocacy strategy. Instead we REMOVE the barriers to make it easier, as demonstrated in this political cartoon.
Here’s the secret: a majority of people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and long-term conditions do not want to die. They would prefer to live with access to the support and services they need to live. Home care, respite, access to palliative care and pain management.
As @Wlcm2ThePrtyPal said on twitter this week, “It’s also a matter of making life so unbearable (red tape, limiting access to resources, gaslighting, etc) that the world becomes unlivable.” We live in a world where parts of the disability community are forced to choose between marriage and healthcare, denied the ability to save more than $2000 or lose healthcare. Before the pandemic, over 10,000 people died a year on waiting to access Social Security benefits. Why not just fund more staff at Social Security to process paperwork in a faster manner to get those that need the help, the help they need?
The relationship between healthcare and economics cannot be denied, and plays a pivotal role in the advocacy around assisted suicide. Medical expenses are 1/3 of Go Fund Me’s & the reason for over 40% of bankruptcy filings. We need a solution that focuses on health. As a majority of people with disabilities will tell you, if you ask, most major life decisions are determined on the basis of the impact of that choice on healthcare. Do you move to another state for a very exciting new job, only to learn that while you receive 10 hours of home care in say, Ohio, moving to New York will only provide you with 6? I have friends who have given up full scholarships to top colleges and universities because of this. Friends who have had to divorce loved ones. When it comes to long-term disability, people with disabilities are no different from our non-disabled brethren in the desire not to leave our loved ones with a mess when we die. In a nation where there is over $45 billion in medical debt, according to Credit Karma, assisted suicide is a classist solution to a system grounded in white supremacy and ableism.
A major issue that plays into the push around assisted suicide, is the prevalence of the non-disabled community to over emphasize the negative aspects of life with disabilities, as cited by the National Council on Disability. We see this trope repeatedly in the media, how many times does a character coughing once, signal cancer? And once example a character is diagnosed with a chronic illness or health condition, the writing room tends to put them on the fast track to death. (Exception being Aunt Vi on “Queen Sugar.” Thanks Ava!)
Someone whose work I look at a lot on this issue, is Anita Cameron, a disability advocate with Not Dead Yet, the preeminent disability led opposition group here in the United States. Much of Anita’s work focuses on the need to look at the issue of assisted suicide through a racial justice lens and how the white supremacist roots of modern medicine cause us to value the lives of Black Disabled people much less. Given the impact of COVID-19 on the disability community, and specifically the Black Disabled community, Anita has re-upped her stance, speaking passionately about the case of Michael Hickson who was removed from life-support without respect for his wishes or those of his family. This truly is an issue resulting from the compounding of racism and ableism, allowing the state to declare that Black Disabled lives don’t matter, and rather than provide lifesaving healthcare, they to move to expedite their deaths.
Legislation is currently waiting to be debated in the New York state legislature, and this bill truly severs self-determination by denying the person with a disability the right to have a conversation with medical personnel regarding their decision without their family present.
So what is the solution? Because this is a complex issue, and we do believe in people’s right to choose — bodily autonomy is ALSO a key tenet of the disability rights movement.
We need solid investment in high quality, person centered home and community-based services, respite, and palliative care, with a mass expansion of access for disabled people of all ages and backgrounds.
Until then, it’s too much to wish the organizations actively working to ensure it’s legal for us to die, would spend 1 hour a week fighting for us to live, fighting for disabled people to have access to the supports and services we deserve to live and thrive in the community. Fight an HOA to allow a disabled veteran to have a ramp for his wheelchair, go in and advocate alongside a disabled kid trying to get a notetaker in school, support a disabled teacher trying to get a restroom she can use in her place of work, show up when the community protests yet another Black Disabled life killed by law enforcement, and you will see just how much my community desperately wants to live, but the alternative is just too dang easy for those who don’t see our lives as worth living.
