He’s superglued himself to log booms, he’s stopped air traffic on tarmacs, and now 68-year-old Howard Breen is making headlines in a new way: by requesting a medically-assisted death..The Extinction Rebellion activist from Ladysmith, B.C. says it’s hard to live knowing our collective choices could lead to our collective deaths..“It becomes debilitating,” the Vancouver Island resident told Vice magazine..“The depression that I'm feeling around the state of things, and my inability to not be apprehensive about the future of my children specifically, is a huge concern for me.”.Breen requested MAiD in February of 2021 but was not approved. He says the medical gatekeepers told him eco-anxiety wasn’t an “acceptable, permissible malady.”.Shortly thereafter, the Liberals’ Bill C-7 expanded euthanasia eligibility and said medical assistance in death (MAiD) for the mentally ill would be in place by March 17, 2023. The announcement gives Breen new hope… to die..“I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of what could happen if we don’t act on climate change… I don’t want to live on a planet where I have to kill to survive,” Breen said..“I do feel if things were to change a great deal, I want that option and, at the moment, I'm being prohibited from having that choice. It’s not a stunt,it's a very real reaction.”.The American Psychiatric Association hasn’t added eco-anxiety to its diagnostic manual, but some people want that changed..Kiffer Card, an “emotional distress researcher” at Simon Fraser University, wants to strip the stigma away from suicide and eco-anxiety, so people like Breen can get MAiD..“People think it’s about politics, that people are not legitimately distressed, or that it’s not a legitimate mental health condition — that it’s a political issue,” Card told Vice. .“So I’d be surprised if his case gets accepted. There’s too much stigma surrounding both suicide and climate anxiety.”.Alex Schadenberg, president of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says euthanasia is being advocated for increasingly dubious reasons in Canada and elsewhere. He’s concerned how eco-deaths might catch on if Breen’s MAiD application is approved..“What happens is then other people with similar condition are asking for it. So you get that contagion effect. Sadly, we know that's true for [unassisted] suicide as well,” Schadenberg told the Western Standard..“People talk about this, and they actually take it seriously. And before you know it, people are dying of these conditions.”.Breen told Vice as much..“It may be my own combination of eco-anxiety and climate militancy that I would look at MAID as an option… If we're looking at a very dark future where runaway climate change actually takes place, it would certainly be an option that I know a lot of other people would want to seriously look at too.” .Schadenberg believes if Breen found the right sympathetic doctors he could probably get MAiD already. He says the two-year moratorium announced by the Liberals when Bill C-7 was passed was more for politics than legality, and that assisted suicide for mental illness could already take place..“One of the problems is the law says the doctor only has to be of the opinion that you fit the criteria in the law. Secondly, once two doctors or two nurse practitioners agree, it doesn't matter that 10 people disagree, it doesn't make a difference,” Schadenberg says..It’s been said suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. However, Schadenberg says euthanasia advocates insist a broad range of conditions are not temporary, then offer death as the solution..“There's nothing when we talk about mental illness issues to suggest that somebody will not get better. You can't scientifically say that, but this is what they're arguing. The argument is someone who has a long-term condition is therefore not going to get better, and therefore they should qualify to have their life ended,” Schadenberg says..“And I think, of course, this is all just a lot of bunk that's gone way out of control. But once you've opened the door, the other side will say, ‘Well, why not?’”.Breen admits his anxiety won’t kill him. He just wants to die on his own terms before people destroy the entire planet..“I don't have an infectious pathogen in my body — I think the planet does,” Breen said. ."If you're on the front lines, you may find yourself at the far end of the spectrum and having a lot of suicidal thoughts. For me, I envision just laughing at the Grim Reaper as I stand on my head for the last moment of my life.”
