Disabled women are more at risk for assisted suicide than men in Canada. Here’s why.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) received a powerful brief from The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s Centre for Faith and Public Life (“CFPL”) on September 9, 2024, which documented the disproportionate effect of euthanasia and assisted suicide on women with disabilities in Canada.  

According to their report, a change in Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law (MAiD) in 2021 made assisted suicide and euthanasia available to Canadians on the basis of disability or chronic illness, instead of only impending death. Disability advocates charge that since then, Canadian authorities may be deliberately pursuing a strategy of providing such subpar benefits to disabled persons, that it keeps them in a constant state of poverty. For many disabled people, committing suicide with the help of the state and medical doctors seems like their only way to escape financial strain.  

The CFPL report to the United Nations focused on women with disabilities who are more at risk than men.  According to their analysis, that while women are naturally more likely than men to suffer from a disability, the utilization of MAID by women in Canada exceeds that disparity. 

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Disabled women are seeking euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada at a higher rate than disabled men. According to the report, “In 2022, the overall number of MAiD deaths [was] relatively equal between men and women (51.4% and 48.6%, respectively).” But when disability became a permitted reason to access MAID, “the ratio of women to men [was] significantly skewed: 59% of those who died by MAiD were women and 41% were men.”

There have been studies noting that women seek euthanasia and assisted suicide more often than men because of their more sensitive nature and desire not to “become a burden” on their family members and community. These studies appear to support the CFPL’s analysis.  The other reasons for a disproportionate utilization by women include more “gaslighting” by medical providers and less stability in securing long-term family physicians than men.

Indifference to Canada’s poor and disabled population utilizing MAID has been growing, even by ethicists, who reasoned in 2023, that “People can make their own determination about whether their lives are worth living, and we should respect that.”

According to the executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, Krista Carr, in an interview with Ricochet Media, “Situations have gotten so desperate that they are wondering if there’s any other choice. It’s a lot cheaper for the system to end people’s lives than it is to support them to live well.”

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