A Conversation on Feminism, Ableism, and Medical Assistance in Dying

Abstract

This article explores the recent expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada and its negative implications for women with disabilities. In 2021, the government extended MAiD to people with disabilities who are not dying, which the authors contend is a modern form of eugenics. Structured as a conversation and deploying a systemic, equality-based feminist analysis, the article tracks the shifts in scope and justification for MAiD through judicial and legislative developments, the overwhelming opposition by organizations representing people with disabilities, and the failure of feminist organizations to support their disabled sisters. The authors articulate a feminist response to the expansion of MAiD to address this troubling silence. After Isabel Grant sets out the foundations of Track 2 MAiD, Janine Benedet develops a critique of the concepts of autonomy, choice, and privacy as used by MAiD expansionists to justify these premature deaths. Elizabeth Sheehy explores some of the structural issues that affect the impetus for MAiD: women’s poverty, the medical profession, the gendered nature of caregiving, and men’s violence. Isabel Grant demonstrates the particular dangers for women of the extension of MAiD on the basis of mental illness, as evidenced by data from other countries. Catherine Frazee describes what a truly intersectional feminist approach to MAiD demands of more privileged feminists and concludes the conversation with a call for feminist solidarity.