Disability groups legally challenge Canada’s euthanasia law

On September 26, 2024 a coalition of disability rights organizations and two personally affected individuals filed a Charter challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The Court Challenge opposes Track 2 of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law, which provides euthanasia to people with a disability who are not dying, or whose death is not “reasonably foreseeable.” 

Disability groups legally challenge Canada’s euthanasia law

President AMLO’s Sixth & Final Informe

Friends:

Today I present to you and to the people and the nation my last government report and I do so more convinced than ever that the best of Mexico is its people, heirs of civilizations that flourished long before the arrival of the European invaders. Thanks to the roots of those pre-Hispanic cultures of that deep Mexico, the Mexicans of today are, in their vast majority, hard-working, supportive and honest. The legacy of good principles that were transmitted from generation to generation and that have not disappeared – despite oppression, classism and racism – is what distinguishes us and places us as a country of virtues and greatness.

President AMLO’s Sixth & Final Informe

Communism and the Family

Women’s role in production: its effect upon the family

Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form? These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, “bizarre”. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over. Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behaviour. Divorce by mutual agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon their husband as “breadwinners”, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.

Communism and the Family

Related:

Family Code On Marriage, The Family, And Guardianship

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The Fascist Mimicry of Anti-Imperialism

A little more than a century ago the world’s superpower was the British Empire. Despite being a constitutional monarchy where the aristocracy and monarchy still retained significant power, the British Empire was arguably the birthplace of the industrial revolution and it played a significant role in spreading capitalism around the world through colonialism. From around the 19th century until the early 20th century, many saw the British Empire as quite possibly the most affluent and powerful capitalist-colonial empire in the world. The British Empire as the capitalist-colonial hegemon extracts resources from its colonies, transforms them into commodities, and sells them for a profit that would go into the pockets of capitalists and royal colonizers alike. There were other competing colonizers such as France, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Japan, and the U.S., but none of them (except the U.S. in the late 20th century) could quite surpass the British Empire. The British Empire was the largest epicenter of world capitalist imperialism and being an anti-imperialist was almost (though not quite) synonymous with being against the British Empire. The geopolitical status of the British Empire is roughly or loosely analogous to the geopolitical status that the U.S. enjoyed since the late 20th century. Both the British Empire and the U.S. enjoy the status of being a hegemonic empire due to their overwhelmingly powerful military (especially their navy) and almost unparalleled economic power.

The Fascist Mimicry of Anti-Imperialism

Marx, Spinoza, and the Political Implications of Contemporary Psychiatry

Simple logic tells us that those atop a societal hierarchy will provide rewards for professionals—be they clergy or psychiatrists—who promote an ideology that maintains the status quo, and that the ruling class will do everything possible to manipulate the public to believe that the social-economic-political status quo is natural.

Marx, Spinoza, and the Political Implications of Contemporary Psychiatry

Kamala Harris Touts DHS Program Encouraging High School Spying

When Vice President Kamala Harris toured the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this week, site of the infamous 2018 Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, she pushed for more gun control and called for communities to accept more federal help in stopping school shootings. “I will continue to advocate for what we must do in terms of universal background checks and assault weapons ban” Harris said.

Kamala Harris Touts DHS Program Encouraging High School Spying

Disabled need help living, not help dying

AS NEW HAMPSHIRE considers legalizing assisted suicide, also referred to as medical aid in dying (MAID), I would like to draw attention to the potential impacts this bill could have on disabled and other marginalized residents.

I was 19 years old the second time I attempted to die by suicide. I had just been diagnosed with a chronic but not life-threatening illness, I had rapidly lost about 70% of my hearing in the middle of completing a music degree, and I was struggling with untreated anorexia that was taking a serious toll on my health.

At my intake appointment with a new therapist a few days after my attempt, I explained my situation and the hopelessness I was feeling. She nodded along, then looked me in the eyes and said something I will never forget:

“I would probably kill myself if I were you.”

She wasn’t the first person to say this to me as I started becoming more noticeably disabled, but she was probably the last person I expected to do so. Now that I work in disability policy, nothing surprises me. I hear stories from other disabled people about doctors pressuring them to sign DNRs because they are assumed to have a low quality of life due to their disability. I get messages on social media from people asking me how to advocate for appropriate pain management when their doctors don’t believe the amount of pain they’re in. I pore over story after story of people like Michael Hickson and Tinslee Lewis having treatment withdrawn, withheld, or threatened because of the pervasive view that it’s better to be dead than disabled.

Jules Good: Disabled need help living, not help dying