Thread by @BrvHrt09

TW: #MAiD Suicide Ableism

More about yesterday’s thread: Through tears and anger I’ve spent 3 week frozen for hours everyday trying and failing to write back a “friend” to explain why the mere suggestion that my suicide, assisted or otherwise, is acceptable bc I’m disabled is…

https://twitter.com/BrvHrt09/status/1544007910518390784

Dehumanizing and coercive in and of itself. It’s been incredibly painful and I’m personally really struggling. But I want to make a broader point. This pro-MAiD advocate isn’t just a “friend” who I’ve trusted with my heart and what’s going on my health before I knew this abt her.

I am also somewhat dependent on her. She’s the only local friend who has stuck around through Covid precautions and me being disabled due to pain. She does a lot of things for me with her car that I’m not sure what I’m going to do without. And THIS…

THIS dependence and trust is why her suggestions to use MAiD carries so much weight. Combined with my frozen and fawn (PTSD) trauma responses, it has stopped me from pushing back on her MAiD promotion. I’m pretty opinionated normally but I’m both emotionally and psych fragile rn.

I’ve been too afraid to offend and lose the 1 person who assists me with necessities. She’s also the only person who I see not behind a screen telling me about a “supported and peaceful exit” from my severe chronic pain +++. But does she hear herself? It’s euthanasia FFS.

Someone PLS tell me how track 2 MAiD, med assisted suicide isn’t *predatory* when offered by a dr, mental health professional, family, friend, society, media, the govt to disabled people who are poor, depressed, deprived, isolated, systemically discriminated against, traumatized?

YOU CANNOT!

I am okay. Or will be. I will not be using MAiD and I will end this “friendship.” But none of this is easy. I *need* #BillC7 #MAIDinCanada to be what dies. Disabled people with various vulnerabilities with less resources, less crip community and care than I do, do too.

Almost forgot my broader point:

There are many relational dynamics, power imbalances and vulnerabilities in which disabled people are going to agree or “choose” assisted suicide and will die by MAiD that have nothing to do with autonomy or what they really want.

Saying NO or asserting what you want & need is damn hard. Reasons why disabled people would opt for assisted suicide are complex and should be met w care and resources not death. Yes some will choose MAiD from a variety of options & from privileged autonomy. But at whose expense?

I wanna live by default again. For every healthcare, mental health care professional & friend to assume (even if they don’t believe it) that my disabled life has value & life is always worth fighting for. To help me ride out the storm & find the resources & care I need to do so.

Is this really too much to ask?

#MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy #KillBillC7

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