Posted on 07/08/2004 7:00:31 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, July 8 (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 own dead son.
"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.
The chamber was almost empty as Smith began to speak, as he lamented that there is "no owner's manual to help you bury a child, especially when the cause is suicide."
But by the time he had finished, several colleagues had lined up to embrace him. And two rose to tell of the suicides of their own fathers.
Nevada Democrat Harry Reid recalled attending Garrett's funeral, and hearing everyone speak so openly about the suicide. After his own father shot himself, Reid said, he was too ashamed to discuss it for years.
If a bill like Smith's had been in effect when his father was a young man, Reid said, "my dad may not have had all the problems that he had as he proceeded through life."
Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles also rose to say his father too had killed himself. "I'm not going to go into the details," he said. "But it's a lot of pain."
Endorsing Smith's $60 million bill, Nickles said, "I have no doubt as a result of us passing this legislation, we'll end up saving a lot of lives, maybe thousands of lives." The bill would help states develop prevention strategies and fund more mental health services on college campuses.
More than 30,000 Americans kill themselves each year and suicide is the third-leading cause of death for people aged 10-24.
New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, who has been very public about his daughter's struggle with schizophrenia, had gone home early, but threw on a suit and dashed back to the Senate to sympathize with Smith.
Domenici said he would make another push for the bill he's advocated for years that would require health insurers to treat serious mental illness the same way they treat physical illness and lashed out at fellow Republicans who had anonymously used a procedural move to block it. "I don't know who you are yet," said Domenici, "but I'll find out."
Of course, we feel for this man, but can the Federal Government "solve" suicide?
No.
I was going to ask how a bill can prevent suicide.
I think of a few who could set a good example in that
regard, if they had the honor required.
I don't believe in the "nanny state" but once we go down the road of health care, we have to give mental health the same status as other types of illness. My adopted daughters mental health issues and my sons alcoholism are both diseases, not different from cancer which deserve our attention.
I agree. On the other hand I also think that the current policy of putting millions of school children on Ritalin and other drugs has had some very adverse effects on the mental health of these young people.
This is not good. It is the job of families, churches and communities (acting as private entities) to deal with such things, NOT government. Scary, even though it is a sad story and he has the best of intentions. Now, government could stand out of the way a little better. They could stop pushing deviant and depressing lifestyles. They could stop hiring liberal morons to control social services and education. They could stop being so hostile to religion. Stuff like that would help.
Alcholicism is different. It's a result of a lifestyle decision.
I cringe at the thought of where we are headed.
I didn't know there were federally subsidized health care clinics on college campuses...
Pandora's box...
Schizophrenia is a disease without choice. Comparing any other mental illness or alcoholism is an abomination!
I agree.
"I was going to ask how a bill can prevent suicide."
Seven day waiting period? Register anything that can be used to commit suicide? Place everyone on suicide watch all the time?
Disease aside, sobbing Senators don't make good law. The law ought to be made by rational debate and thought not by sobbing solons playing on emotions of colleagues.
That said, mental health benefits for medically ill, Schizophrenic as an example, people ought to be the same as other coverage for medical illness. But if this can is opened, every psychopest calling himself a counselor from the Scientologists to the garden variety busybody with an easy degree from a junior college, will be billing the federal government, Medicare, as well as private insurers for their "services" and the "services" won't be for the very seriously ill patient but for the worried well, the gripers, the kvetchers, the sorry for themselves crowd. The people who want this bill want a friend for hire paid for by you and me. That is quite different from those very seriously ill people who need professional medical care not counseling in various guises.
I wish there were an 'Owner's Manual' to help us shove legislators off high bridges -- especially those who insist on micromanaging our lives.
There are legitimate mental illnesses that have physical causes. These should be covered. But I don't want everyone who claims to be "depressed" on the government dole. Some people have "mental illness" because they can't deal with life. I think as a society we have labeled laziness, self-centerdness, anti-social tendancies as depression too often. Although there is a legitimate physical induced depression I see a lot of other "victims" who are people who label themselves as such to get attention.
Alcoholism is a choice. The firt drink is a choice.
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