Learning to be a Better Backup Singer: Ableism within MAiD

Several months ago, at an event about stopping the expansion of medical assistance in dying (“MAiD”) in Canada, Dr. Heidi Janz, an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta and a disabled advocate herself, encouraged believers and Christian organizations to learn the art of amplifying others’ voices. To, as she put it, “be our backup singers.”

At the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (“EFC”), we often talk about why it’s so important for Christians to engage in public policy. How we engage and are present in critical conversations helps to shape our laws and policies, and these have a direct impact on how our neighbours are treated. This means civic engagement is part of our Christian witness and part of our call to love our neighbours, to seek justice for those who are marginalized and oppressed.

Our approach to the issue of MAiD is rooted in biblical principles of respect for human life and dignity, justice, and care for those who are vulnerable. Based in these principles, we are opposed to MAiD, the intentional ending of a person’s life. We have remained engaged in the conversations, calling for rigorous safeguards to minimize the harm and risk to Canadians in moments or situations of vulnerability.

We believe the proper response to the suffering of our neighbours is to respond with care and compassion, to journey alongside those who are struggling or nearing death.

When Bill C-7 passed in 2021, a second track for MAiD was created, expanding eligibility to people with disabilities or chronic illness who weren’t dying. MAiD was now available to people because they had a chronic illness or disability, putting them outside of the protections offered to other Canadians – solely on the basis of disability.

When this bill was being debated, as EFC staff, we entered into a deliberate process of learning and of listening to disability advocates. Tragically, these important expert and experiential voices were not always heard by decision-makers.

This expansion of MAiD was overwhelmingly opposed by disability rights activists and organizations. They cautioned that extending MAiD to people with disabilities who are not dying sends the implicit message that their lives are not worth living. They warned of the greater risk in a regime that accepts that the lives of people with disabilities can be ended, particularly in an overburdened medical system. They expressed serious and legitimate concern that this change was discriminatory and would pressure people with disabilities to end their lives.

The EFC shared those concerns and cautioned that Bill C-7 proposed fundamental changes in how we understand our societal duty of care and would be a watershed change in medicine, in law and in society. And indeed, it has.

In the time since this expansion, its reality and implications for the lives of Canadians living with disability have become chillingly clear. We’ve read story after heartbreaking story of people with disability or chronic illness who are requesting MAiD – not because they want to die, but because they can’t get the support they need, or they can’t afford to live.

We have been saying for years that it is unconscionable that in Canada people would choose to die because they can’t afford or can’t access the care and supports they need to live and flourish. Canadians living with disability must be offered the care and support needed to live on an equal basis with other Canadians.

Over the last several years, we’ve worked hard to support and amplify the voices of those in the disability community, to be good allies, and to try to push back against this devaluing of life.

We have come to understand the current MAID regime – in particular the expansion to those with disability who are not nearing death – to be a society-wide expression of ableism, or discrimination against people with disabilities. And we’ve felt great distress at the extreme expressions of ableism in the debates around MAiD.

This discrimination is prevalent in our culture, and it is, in a very real and urgent sense, putting lives at risk. It is also unbiblical.

As followers of Jesus, we understand that this runs counter to what the Bible teaches us about human life and human dignity. We believe that every person’s life matters, that they are loved by God, and are infinitely precious to him. Every life is valuable.

We grieve at this trend, at the devaluing and discarding of human life. We grieve that people in vulnerable situations among us are not being supported to live, but instead facilitated to die. And we believe this is a crucial time for the church to love our neighbours.

As we have wrestled with this reality of ableism on a policy level, it has also underlined for us how important it is – at all levels of government and in all corners of society – to support the survival and flourishing of people with disabilities. Including in the church.

It became clear to us that we needed to think about these issues beyond just a policy level, and we began to consider how this pervasive ableism may be present in our churches and communities, too. We realized that we need to also look within.

This led us develop Life Together: Disability and Belonging in the Church. This introductory resource is designed to help foster awareness and further understanding of disability and inclusion in churches. It shares interviews with advocates and leaders in the disability community – including from Karis Disability Services – about where we can begin as churches, what ableism in the church might look like and what relevant passages in the Bible have to say. It has questions for reflection and discussion, and points to some excellent resources. The resource is intended to help us begin to identify and remove barriers in the ways we worship and in our buildings that may prevent other Christians from participating fully in church life.

We are created to live in relationship, in community with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Every one of us, regardless of ability, health or socio-economic status has gifts to share that enrich our communities and congregations. We are members of the Body of Christ together and every one of us should be welcomed into full participation.

We learned so much in the development Life Together and recognize important shifts beginning in our own ways of thinking. It was also deeply life-giving – a hopeful, inspiring journey in the midst of an otherwise dark and challenging time dealing with MAiD.

As followers of Jesus, we must work to counteract the ableism in law and policy, and to also consider our attitudes and approaches to people with disabilities, to identify and address ableism or discrimination in our own lives and church communities. And further than that, to make sure that our churches are places where the whole body of Christ is welcomed and belongs.

We have been encouraged by the ways it has been shared and used in communities across Canada. And we are committed to diving deeper in our own learning individually and as part of the wider church.

The call of Dr. Janz for backup singers in the struggle against the expansion of MAiD in Canada was heard loud and clear. We have taken that to heart. The EFC is committed to learning to be better backup singers.