Senator's Tearful Plea Helps Pass Suicide Bill

[LittleApple81]

This is a moving story, and I feel SO BAD FOR ANYBODY who has lost a relative, friend, etc. to suicide. I think this bill is a very good bill.

BUT DO WE NEED A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE SENATE TO PASS A BILL? Maybe all the repugs who have relatives who have needed an abortion could come up and talk about the need for preserving choice? hmmmmm I doubt it.


By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For a few moments on Thursday, the only sounds in the U.S. Senate chamber were the sobs of a grieving father.

Oregon Republican Gordon Smith took the floor to introduce a youth suicide prevention bill named after his dead son. With unusual speed, the Senate unanimously passed the measure within hours.

"He saw only despair ahead and felt only pain in his present. Pain and despair so potent that he sought suicide as a release. As a release," Smith said, recalling his son, Garrett, who killed himself in his college apartment last September, one day before his 22nd birthday.

Smith recalled a "beautiful child, a handsome baby boy" that he and his wife Sharon adopted a few days after birth. He had vast intellectual gifts but struggled with learning disabilities, dyslexia, and bipolar disorder, sometimes called manic depression, Smith said.

There is "no owner's manual to help you bury a child, especially when the cause is suicide," he said.

more at link:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wrvo/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=658941

[SoCalDem]

1. Repubes act ONLY on personal experience..

They know no humanity until it hits them in the face with a sledgehammer.. They lack empathy, and until it's delivered to them personally, they have no interest in legislation.

$60M is a drop in the bucket if it is for actual "help".. It is more likely that it will be for "development and study" purposes and little will end up in actual treatment for the kids.

[theboss]

2. I really hate this trend

But what I really hate are the bills named after people (like the Laci Peterson Bill). Both sides do it and it makes arguing the issues nearly impossible. Now, you are not against a law, you are against a person.

[SoCalDem]

3. and a hundred years from now, people will wonder why it was named that

It only makes it probable that some "news items" will NEVER fade from the public memory.. That may be why they do it :(

[theboss]

4. It's not just people's names either

I think you could name a bill "The Everything Will Be Super Omnibus Budget Act," include a provision for forcing everyone to dye their hair green, and get it passed.

[drdigi420]

5. Suicide should not only be legal

it should be heavily advertised on television.

Why should we force ppl that want to leave the party to stay?