Numerous news reports and editorials have flooded media outlets over the past two weeks following the tragic deaths by suicide of two celebrities, concurrently with the release of a CDC study confirming a significant rise in suicide nationwide over the past 20 years. There has been speculation about the role played by depression and other mental illness in these deaths, and … [Read more...] about The Elephant in the Room
Suicide Contagion
Why on Earth is Anyone Surprised By the Rise in US Suicides? Advertising Works.
News sources are reporting with surprise and seeming alarm on the Center for Disease Control’s newly released statistics showing that deaths by suicide in the entire US are on the rise. Why the surprise? It has been common knowledge since the rise of mass media, and even before, that advertising works. True Dignity has neither the expertise nor the time to analyze the CDC … [Read more...] about Why on Earth is Anyone Surprised By the Rise in US Suicides? Advertising Works.
Hopeful News: The California Legislature May Refuse to Legalize Assisted Suicide
Though nothing is certain at this point, Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist from the University of California at Irvine who is closely following the assisted suicide bill in California , writes in an article posted on the Wall Street Journal website last night that the bill's recent placement on a Senate committee's "suspense list" is a sign that it has bogged … [Read more...] about Hopeful News: The California Legislature May Refuse to Legalize Assisted Suicide
Some Legislators Taking a “Hear-no-evil” Stance on Act 39
Boldly displayed on a dry-erase board in Room 46 at the Vermont Statehouse, the meeting room for the House Human Services Committee, is a short list of principles the Committee has established to guide them as they consider legislation that affects Vermonters. The very first goal listed is: “Ensuring that vulnerable (Vermonters) are safe and protected.” After two … [Read more...] about Some Legislators Taking a “Hear-no-evil” Stance on Act 39
The “Movement” for Assisted Suicide: A New Kind of Religious Zealotry
Assisted suicide is becoming a pseudo-religion, a form of spirituality, in which "(Brittany) Maynard has become a sort of secular saint for the cause, and the media have provided her hagiography," according to Psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty of the University of California at Irvine. What is being worshipped? In a blogpost linked below, Kheriaty writes that it is a delusional … [Read more...] about The “Movement” for Assisted Suicide: A New Kind of Religious Zealotry