In a November 14th article in The Epoch Times entitled ‘Death Is Becoming an Industry’: Euthanasia Opponents Bemoan Rise in Medically Assisted Deaths in Canada, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director Alex Schadenberg discussed the growing momentum of euthanasia in Canada. The article by Lee Harding included the following extensive quotes from NDY Board member Amy Hasbrouck about society’s devaluation of disabled people how we are treated as having —
‘More Disposable, Less Valuable’ Lives
Amy Hasbrouck, a Quebec resident and executive director of Toujours Vivant – Not Dead Yet, a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, said the disabled have actively opposed euthanasia for over 35 years.
“Consciousness was made during the landmark case when Robert Latimer killed his 12-year-old daughter, [Tracy]. And while the court engaged appropriately by convicting and sentencing him to the usual sentence, the amount of public support he received for his desire to have a more lenient sentence was really shocking to those with disabilities,” Hasbrouck said in an interview.
“We’re accustomed to being considered more disposable and less valuable, but we were fairly surprised that people were so overt in their declarations that Tracy’s life was not worth living.”
The Truchon decision in Quebec in September 2019 legalized euthanasia for the disabled across Canada, a decision Hasbrouck believes did more to devalue people with disabling health conditions than empower them.
“The judge, basically, instead of saying, ‘You’re right. That’s the problem of our public policies and the way we treat disabled people. We need to do things differently,’ she said, ‘Oh, yes. You’re right. You should have the right to be killed by the state because, of course, you wouldn’t want to go into a nursing home,” Hasbrouck said.
“So the judge’s solution was, they would be better off dead.”
In 2020, Jonathan Marchand, a Quebec City man with muscular dystrophy, camped out in a makeshift cage in front of the Quebec National Assembly for five days to protest his confinement in a nursing home due to the lack of independent living options for people with disabilities.
“Quebec resisted and dragged their feet. And ultimately, they allowed Jonathan to create a program for himself, but they refused to extend the pilot project to other people. … [Yet] it costs less for somebody to live in the community than for the person that lives in an institution,” Hasbrouck said.
“It became much more apparent during the COVID pandemic that society in general considered disabled people [and the elderly in nursing homes] as a disposable population. Those are trends that we have seen most recently that are very worrisome.”