Just as Nazi Germany found that executing the crippled was financially expedient, so has liberal Canada.
(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon sits down with Roger Foley, a disabled Canadian man who has been offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) on multiple occasions and continues to speak out against the injustice of Canada’s euthanasia regime.
Foley explains that when he was young, there were no tests for his illness, spinocerebellar ataxia type 14, a disease affecting the brain. While a sickly, clumsy, and fatigued child, he always pushed himself, wondering if he was not eating properly or if he was lazy. However, Foley’s symptoms got “bad” in his late teens and early twenties, causing him to see specialists. Foley received his diagnosis in 2005.
While working for the Royal Bank in Toronto, he had to use a cane and then a walker to move. Eventually, his health became such that he could no longer work, having to rely on long-term disability. Foley also had to begin “home care,” which he says from the beginning was “very inappropriate, very fractured, [and] inconsistent,” and he suffered abuse. “It got to the point where I became very suicidal and it was a nightmare and there was no way out.”
Foley eventually found himself in a mental hospital because he became suicidal. While the hospital attempted to arrange home care for him, Foley says he would have been discharged only for the same thing or worse to befall him. Foley found out about individualized funding for home care or self-directive funding while in hospital. However, because of the province he lives in, it was not available. He has been in hospital for over eight years, entering in February 2016.
Foley says he has been pressured multiple times to use MAiD. “It’s very traumatizing when that’s offered, especially so bluntly and also in combination with being blocked with the supports that you need to live as well,” he tells Jonathon. “I just decided that I’m gonna continue fighting for my life and that my life still has value, even though I’ve been told to my face it doesn’t.”
READ: Disabled Canadian man says he has been offered euthanasia ‘multiple times’ while in the hospital
Foley was first offered MAiD in November 2016, and it became a “recurring pattern” until January 2018. He tells Jonathon it would be mentioned for the most part after he would tell hospital staff he was suicidal. He also recounts one instance in which a nurse did a safety check on him and asked him if he had any thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
“There’s a constant reminder of it, I would say it’s a harassment, and they don’t see it as coercion, they see it as informing, but it’s a real blurry area right now in Canada,” says Foley. “Words can’t describe how pillaged I feel and how scared I feel. The suicide prevention in this country for disabled and vulnerable people has been completely obliterated due to the assisted dying regime.”
“When persons with disabilities come out with their experiences of what they’re going through with this regime, in combination with the lack of rights and the lack of services and support to live, and when families also come out about their loved ones who have been wrongly assisted to die because of this regime, it’s a brush job at all levels.”
Meanwhile, Foley notes, the availability of MAiD seems to be increasingly expanding. He notes the suggestion by euthanasia advocates that mature minors and those with mental health issues be given access to MAiD.
While he is unsure of how much “awareness was raised” when his story first broke in 2018, Foley says that what he saw is that it showed that a good deal of people were paying attention. However, he adds that it did not “raise any eyebrows in the top levels to put more protections in place or even evaluate what’s going on.” He also notes that he was not the first person to go public with a story like his own.
When Jonathon asks Foley about his continued fight against MAiD, Foley says he was always a “positive person” who would always try to be as good at something as he could be and never give up. He also says he worries for other disabled people across Canada and the lack of services and recognized rights for the disabled.
“I’m only human so, eventually, if they keep doing what they’re doing, I’ll end up a casualty as well,” he says. “It’s so difficult to be blocked from what you need to live, to be blocked from reaching your full potential, or to be blocked from even freedom of association… to surround yourself with people who will work with you and not work at you, for people who will treat you as a human being and not an object.”
READ: Catholic hospital facing lawsuit for refusing to euthanize 34-year-old Canadian woman
Foley retains the hope that one day he can return home and have the care he needs to be able to live his life with others and contribute to the country.
Towards the end of the episode, Foley discusses the lawsuit he filed over his treatment. He explains the lawsuit is not only because of the damages he has undergone in the hospital, but also because of what goes on in the hospital system to other disabled people who cannot access the support they need, or do not have full citizenship or recognition of rights. It will also, he says, give treatment of disabled people a fair hearing in the courts.
Up to this point, Foley contends, the disabled have only had access to “a fast-food style of court that rolls out the red carpet for euthanasia and assisted suicide, but continues to close the doors on any cases for disability rights or damages done to the disabled because of our dysfunctional system.” He says his case needs to be heard, not only for himself, but also for others.