TORONTO (LifeSiteNews) — A 31-year-old Toronto woman is nearing “final approval” for a medically assisted death she applied for after being unable to find an affordable apartment to accommodate her disabilities.
According to CTV News, the disabled woman, who is referred to as Denise in the report, says she applied for “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)” because she was unsuccessful in securing an apartment that would accommodate her conditions within her budget.
Denise says she is “relieved” that it looks like she is going to get the approval, adding that she “was scared that they weren’t going to say ‘yes.’”
The report explains that Denise suffers from Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), which makes her at risk for going into potentially-fatal anaphylactic shock from a variety of commonly used chemicals, on top of having a spinal cord injury that has her confined to a wheelchair.
While not all reactions to chemical irritants cause anaphylaxis, Denise says even mild exposure to things like cigarette smoke, laundry chemicals, and air fresheners trigger “rashes, difficulty breathing, and blinding headaches called hemiplegic migraines that cause her temporary paralysis.”
Due to the restrictive income of roughly $1,200 provided to her each month through Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), she has been unable to find an affordable apartment that would accommodate her complex needs, leading her to feel as though MAiD is the only solution.
“I’ve applied for MAiD essentially … because of abject poverty,” the woman told CTV News.
This is the second case in a month where an Ontario woman sought MAiD due to being unable to afford life with a complex disability.
In April, a 51-year-old woman also suffering from MCS was put to death through the government’s MAiD program, explaining in a video eight days before her death that “the government sees me as expendable trash.”
While abortion is often considered the preeminent pro-life issue, many activists have warned that the allowance of assisted suicide would inevitably lead to more and more leniency of who qualifies for the procedure, and would ultimately end in a system that drastically and unequivocally undermines the value of human life.
Confirming the fears of activists, since MAiD was legalized in Canada in 2016, the law has already expanded the access to voluntary lethal injection beyond just terminally ill adults to chronically ill adults like Denise.
In March 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government passed Bill C-7, which changed the law regarding MAiD to allow certain individuals to end their life even when their death is not “reasonably foreseeable” as long as their particular condition or disability is considered “irredeemable.”
While the amended law currently outlaws allowing those suffering from mental illness alone to qualify, that provision is set to expire on March 17, 2023. In effect, if the law stands, those suffering from neither terminal illness nor chronic illness, but solely mental illness, may soon be able to be legally put to death.