Two stories were in the Vermont news this week that highlight a very real conflict of interest over suicide in this State. Vermont Public Radio aired an interview with JoEllen Tarallo-Falk, Director of the Vermont Suicide Prevention Center (VTSPC), on suicide prevention: http://digital.vpr.net/post/more-funding-needed-suicide-prevention-advocates-say Meanwhile, several media outlets published stories glamorizing two recent Legislature-endorsed (per Act […]
Archive for the ‘Suicide Contagion’ Category
Vermont’s Suicide Conflict of Interest
Posted in Selling of Suicide, Suicide Contagion, Suicide Increase, Vermont Legislature on February 12, 2015 | Comments Off on Vermont’s Suicide Conflict of Interest
Brittany Maynard is Postponing Her Suicide, Maybe Gaining Some Time for Reconsideration
Posted in Suicide Contagion on October 30, 2014 | Comments Off on Brittany Maynard is Postponing Her Suicide, Maybe Gaining Some Time for Reconsideration
Brittany Maynard has released a new video explaining that she is probably postponing her suicide, which she had announced would take place on November 1 (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/29/health/oregon-brittany-maynard-video/index.html). True Dignity is very happy for her, and for all those who would have been adversely affected by reading about this death, self-inflicted with the approval and aid […]
To Brittany Maynard: You Can Still Escape the “Movement” to Spread Assisted Suicide and Find Meaning in Helping Others Escape Too
Posted in Slippery Slope, Suicide Contagion on October 8, 2014 | Comments Off on To Brittany Maynard: You Can Still Escape the “Movement” to Spread Assisted Suicide and Find Meaning in Helping Others Escape Too
Radio and tv networks and popular print media are saturated today with the news that Brittany Maynard, a twenty-nine year old California woman with a brain tumor that is usually fatal, having moved to Oregon because that state has legalized assisted suicide, plans to die on November 1, approximately six months after receiving a prognosis […]
As Washington Suicide Rate Increases, TV Station Runs Spot Romanticizing Assisted Suicide
Posted in Suicide Contagion on September 23, 2014 | Comments Off on As Washington Suicide Rate Increases, TV Station Runs Spot Romanticizing Assisted Suicide
After the legal wrangling was over, all appeals had failed, and Oregon’s assisted suicide law began to result in reported deaths in 1999, the rate of non-assisted suicides in the state, which had been declining for a decade, immediately began to rise. It has continued to do so. In 2010 it was 35% over the […]
Letter to the Burlington Free Press: Assisted Suicide Law is Not Working, Should Be Repealed
Posted in Letters to the Editors of Newspapers, Suicide Contagion, Unused Drug Dangers, Vermont on September 9, 2014 | Comments Off on Letter to the Burlington Free Press: Assisted Suicide Law is Not Working, Should Be Repealed
Somehow we missed this good letter when it appeared in the Burlington Free Press last June. How can anyone say the law is working well when it hasn’t been used at all and when we don’t know where the lethal drugs that were obtained but not ingested are? Unlike some earlier versions of the bill […]
Suicide by any other name…
Posted in Depression, Expansion of Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia, Healthy people helped to commit suicide, Not a Peaceful Death, Slippery Slope, Suicide Contagion, Suicide Increase on August 12, 2014 | Comments Off on Suicide by any other name…
Again today, my Facebook feed is filled with statements of mourning about yet another reported suicide of a well known person. People who knew Robin Williams only by his public persona are grieved by his untimely death, allegedly at his own hands. We can only imagine the heartbreak being experienced by his friends and family. […]