On Wednesday, the Government of Alberta tabled legislation to prohibit medical assistance in dying except for those whose deaths are foreseeable. This legislation recognizes the fears, harms, and deaths that MAID Track2 has already brought to too many women with disabilities in Canada since it was introduced in 2021.

The devaluing of the lives of women and girls with disabilities and systemic ableism were on full display as far back as 1993 with the murder of Tracy Latimer by her father, and again in 1998, when DAWN Canada and other disability rights organizations intervened to push back against the portrayal or Robert Latimer as the victim.

According to Statistics Canada, 30 per cent of women in Canada live with a disability. We also continue to live (and die) with the highest rates of poverty and gender-based violence in this country. Restricting MAiD to those nearing the end of life — and ensuring it is never extended to people with mental illness or to mature minors — is the correct and only course of action.

The Alberta government’s bill to halt implementation of MAiD Track 2 will save lives, and growing evidence supports this. Recent data on those who have used this path is telling geographically and economically. Those accessing MAiD Track 2 are victims of poverty, gender-based violence and homelessness. Instead of coercing/pressuring women with disabilities to ‘consider’ MAID Track 2 as a ‘health care’ option, we need to provide support, safe and accessible and affordable housing and the resources to build their lives, not to end them. Unfortunately, the reality and numbers tell a different story.

For example, research in Ontario has identified a notable correlation between MAID Track 2 deaths and factors related to poverty and marginalization, as detailed in reports from the Ontario Chief Coroner’s MAID Death Review Committee.

An article in the Canadian Journal of Bioethics on MAiD Track 2 by Isabel Grant shows that in 2023, 59 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients were women, with Ontario reporting 61 per cent. This gender disparity raises concerns about systemic factors influencing women’s decisions to access MAiD, including women with disabilities who experience intimate partner violence, which may increase their physical and psychological disabilities and increase their eligibility for MAiD.

According to the federal government’s own website, ”those receiving MAiD under Track 2 were predominantly women, slightly younger, and lived with their illness for a much longer period of time.” These numbers indicate that under Track 2, more women, 55.6 per cent had a disability.

In addition, the appeal of MAiD as a choice over palliative care has clearly gained traction. However, this framing is misleading. Meaningful choice can only exist where there is another option. For too many Canadians, quality palliative care is not accessible—which means the so-called choice to pursue MAiD is, in practice, no choice at all.

DAWN Canada is a strong advocate for research; it is something we do each day. We have the data; what we are lacking is the political will to translate those numbers into better laws and policies to protect and lift up the nearly one-third of women who live with a disability in Canada. As a G7 country, we can and must do better.

The Government of Alberta is taking the right path with this bill. We are asking all the other provinces and territories to follow Alberta’s lead and end MAiD Track 2. The promise of choice and dignity with disabilities through MAiD Track 2 is not real for many people with disabilities in Canada. The data does not lie.

Bonnie Brayton is the chief executive officer of DAWN Canada. DAWN’s mission is to end poverty, isolation, discrimination and violence experienced by women and gender-diverse people with disabilities, including those who are Deaf.