(LifeSiteNews) – A 33-year-old quadriplegic Canadian woman who is a mother of three says it was easier for her to get approved for state-sanctioned euthanasia than to get help for disabilities that she has been suffering with for many years.
In a video shared online on June 20 by RightNowHQ, Rose Finlay of Bowmanville, Ontario, said there is a “huge and detrimental discrepancy that exists in the supports available to disabled Ontarians.”
“I’m a quadriplegic single mom raising two kids with disabilities, and I’ve spent the last 79 days trying to raise as much awareness as I possibly can,” Finlay said in the video.
In only a few days, Finlay is scheduled to die by assisted suicide, or Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) as it is known in Canada.
She noted how it takes anywhere from six to eight months to get help from the Ontario Disability Support Program, compared with 91 days for MAiD. She applied for the program.
Finlay says her quality of life is poor due to acute kidney pain, chills, fever, headaches, nausea, and muscle spasms. Over the past 1 ½ years, she says she has been extremely sick.
When she was 17, she was involved in a car accident that left her in need of a wheelchair.
Receiving MAiD sooner than disability, Finlay says, help “tells me that our government is not prioritizing the lives of disabled people and that it is easier to let disabled people go than it is to actually give them the assistance that they need.”
People have commented on her videos, calling her out for abandoning her kids, who will live with their dad after she dies.
“I just hope showing people more of this side of things will help people understand the outcome is the same for me if I’m not able to make change,” she said.
Earlier this month, LifeSiteNews reported about how a prominent pro-life researcher called out the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for handing out more than $3 million to a pro-euthanasia advocacy group, the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers.
The Trudeau government legalized euthanasia in 2016, and since that time deaths have skyrocketed under the MAiD program. There has been a continued push to further expand who can qualify for state-sanctioned death.
The expansion to include MAiD to those suffering solely from mental illness came as part of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for doctor-assisted death.
The mental illness expansion was originally set to take effect in March. However, after massive pushback from pro-life groups, conservative politicians and others, the Liberals under Trudeau delayed the introduction of the full effect of Bill C-7 until 2024 via Bill C-39, which became law on March 9.
Overall, there has been a 35% increase in state-sanctioned assisted suicides in 2022 in Canada, with estimates showing some 13,500 Canadians took their life from the procedure in the same year alone.
The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has been trying to fight back against MAiD’s expansion.
Recently, a private member’s bill that would repeal the expansion of euthanasia laws to those suffering solely from mental illness got its first official debate in the House of Commons.