Not that I'm on any kind of suicide kick or anything, but maybe to illuminate the point of my last post, a bill introduced in the Michigan legislature last week actually wants to honor suicide.
HB 5914, introduced by Rep. Sara Cambensy, D-Marquette, aims to designate a portion of M-95 as the "Rep. John Kivela Memorial Highway." Kivela, a Marquette Democrat, died last year by committing suicide.
Understandably, Cambensy, a fellow Marquette resident and colleague of Kivela, would feel a strong sense of wanting to remember him. But we already have a suicide epidemic in America. Look at the number of young people killing themselves as a "solution" to bullying or other challenges that life presents to them. Where are they getting the direction that suicide is never the answer to anything, no matter how intense the problem?
Publicly honoring those who kill themselves would only romanticize and glamorize suicide. Unstable people contemplating such a devastating action may see a highway memorial as encouragement that taking one's own life is not only acceptable, but noble.
Taking it a step further, someone seeking vainglory of any kind may see the naming of a stretch of highway after themselves as pretty appealing. Since they may not achieve that honor through the actual type of accomplishment normally required, why not consider other means of attention, especially the type that would live on in perpetuity in such a public way? Obviously, were HB 5914 to pass, suicide would be moved to the list of the type of accomplishment that can get one the attention and praise he seeks.
The obvious point, of course, is that suicide is a tragedy, not a heroic action deserving of honor. In no way should the Michigan House even consider passing HB 5914.
What they could consider passing though is HB 5923, also introduced last week, which asks to designate a portion of I-94 in Jackson County as the "Corrections Officers Jack Budd and Josephine McCallum Memorial Highway" in honor of the two prison guards killed in the line of duty in 1987.
Honoring those who lose their lives against their will while serving others should take precedence over those who choose to take their own lives, no matter how tragic the circumstances that led to that fatal choice. Only by rejecting suicide in all ways can we even hope to restore the full value of life that has been lost in a culture all too eager to embrace death.
HB 5914 needs to be rejected.
