Live and Let Die
In “Too Easy to Die” (June), Meagan Gillmore refers to reports that “people have considered applying for or have died by MAID for reasons such as insufficient housing and meagre social supports that have left them in perpetual poverty.” Anyone can apply for MAID, but they won’t be found eligible unless they meet all of the requirements. It is worth noting as well that, according to a 2022 Ipsos Reid poll conducted on our behalf, 86 percent of people with disabilities were in favour of MAID’s legalization in 2016 and 83 percent supported removal of the “death reasonably foreseeable” requirement. Canada desperately needs to increase support for people with mental illness and disabilities. We must make it possible to live with dignity as well as to die with dignity. But in the meantime, as health columnist André Picard wrote in the Globe and Mail, “no one should be denied either. You don’t resolve one injustice by creating another.”
