Climate activist asks for euthanasia (MAiD) based on eco-anxiety.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Ryan Hook wrote an interesting article about Howard Breen, who is seeking death by euthanasia based on eco-anxiety. Hook's article was published by VICE on May 12, 2022.

Hook explains Breen's condition:

The 68-year-old eco-activist and member of the global group Extinction Rebellion has spent almost his entire life trying to warn people about the climate crisis. He’s been arrested for super-gluing himself to log booms and stopping air traffic on tarmacs. He’s even gone on hunger strikes.

Then in 2017, Breen’s doctor diagnosed him with clinical eco-anxiety and biosphere-related depression. It’s an intense fear of entropy related to the existential threat of climate change, and it’s becoming more common. Breen is so genuinely worried about global climate chaos—which has led to destructive and deadly heat waves, floods, and fires around the world—that he often experiences depression, anxious malaise, and panic attacks.

Breen's doctor diagnosed him with eco-anxiety in 2017.

In 2017, Breen’s doctor diagnosed him with clinical eco-anxiety and biosphere-related depression. It’s an intense fear of entropy related to the existential threat of climate change, and it’s becoming more common. Breen is so genuinely worried about global climate chaos—which has led to destructive and deadly heat waves, floods, and fires around the world—that he often experiences depression, anxious malaise, and panic attacks.

Breen's eco-anxiety has led him to seek death by euthanasia (MAiD).

If the world doesn’t immediately divest from fossil fuels and the climate crisis continues, Breen would rather not see what becomes of it. He wants a contingency plan. That’s why he said he’s applied for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)—a program that allows citizens to take their own lives, under the care of a doctor, if they can’t cope anymore. The law was first adopted in 2016 for Canadians afflicted by grievous or incurable medical conditions but was eventually amended to include those determined to have a low enough quality of life. And next March, the program will be expanded even further to include people living with mental illness.

Breen feels he should be eligible.

Breen applied for MAiD and was turned-down in February 2021 because the assessors didn't consider his condition as qualifying for death by lethal injection. Since Bill C-7 passed in March 2021, Breen believes that he will qualify for MAiD when euthanasia becomes permissible for mental illness alone in March 2023. Hook wrote:

Currently, if a mental illness is the only medical condition leading someone to consider the program, they’re not eligible. Suicide isn’t most people’s response to hardship, and the vast majority of people who experience suicidal ideations recover with treatment. According to the Canadian government, however, the exclusion of mental illness from the medically assisted death program is temporary, and beginning March 17, 2023, Canadians whose only medical condition is a mental illness, and who otherwise meet all eligibility criteria, will be eligible. They also must be fit to give informed consent without outside influence and be at least 18 years old.

It is concerning that Rebecca Johnson, a constitutional and criminal law professor at the University of Victoria, and whose mother died by euthanasia in June 2021, supports Breen's request for euthanasia (MAiD) and is suggesting that Breen becomes a "test case" to challenge the breadth of the law.

The article in VICE is clearly pushing the envelope for people experiencing eco-anxiety.

This story shows us how far the euthanasia law can go once it becomes acceptable to kill people.