Difficult Choices: Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, and the Implications for the Disability community

In this 65th episode the Triple Vision Team tackles the complicated issue of Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID. In 2021 Canada’s parliament revised its MAID legislation to allow for MAID in circumstances other than a death being foreseeable and imminent. As a result, MAID is now available to Canadians who have a "grievous and irremediable medical condition", which can include a serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability. This change has opened the doors to many ethical discussions about possible implications for the disability community. We invite Dr. Mahadeo Sukhai into a conversation about this. Mahadeo is well qualified on this topic as Chief Operating Officer of IDEA - STEM, an organization which focuses on accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health care. He is also an Adjunct professor in the School of Medicine ophthalmology at Queen’s University, as well as faculty in the Business Administration Technology program at Ontario Tech University, and in Inclusive Design at OCAD University."If we believe, in the disability community, that we have a right to oversight of our own bodies, then we have to acknowledge that if someone’s been given all of the information they need and this is a choice that they choose to make, we as a disability community can’t object. We can say, are we sure that there’s been appropriate levels of information provided. We can say, are we sure that there’s been appropriate consideration for all of the barriers and how those barriers exist and how those barriers play into lived experience. But ultimately, if we’re sure the person is making a choice, and its their choice to have made, we can argue with the outcome of the choice, because it might not be what we would choose, but we can’t necessarily argue with the fact that they have the choice."