{"id":1314864,"date":"2019-09-20T22:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/micek-column-there-is-always-hope\/"},"modified":"2019-09-20T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T04:12:00","slug":"micek-column-there-is-always-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/micek-column-there-is-always-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Micek column: There is always hope"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HARRISBURG, Pa. \u2014 Fighting back tears, her voice cracking, Jackie Bieber had a simple message for anyone who\u2019s thinking about taking their own life:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is always life,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is always hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, Bieber\u2019s 25-year-old daughter, Shawn Shatto \u2013 apparently egged on by a ghoulish online community that provided her with step-by-step instructions on how to kill herself \u2013 died by suicide in York County, about 40 minutes south of Harrisburg.<\/p>\n

And when she hesitated, when she had second thoughts, they pushed her to follow through, telling her death was the only escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisgusting. Appalling. Unacceptable.\u201d Jackie Bieber barked out the words. Her husband, Chip Bieber, holding a framed photo of their daughter, stood at his wife\u2019s side in the state Capitol rotunda.<\/p>\n

Appalling? That doesn\u2019t even begin to cover it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no collection of adjectives that adequately captures the trauma of losing a child \u2013 especially when, as the Biebers believe, anonymous faces lurking online steered Shawn Shatto on her tragic course. The case remains under investigation, authorities said.<\/p>\n

This week, Pa. state Rep. Dawn Keefer rolled out legislation that she hopes will prevent such future tragedies. She\u2019s calling it \u201cShawn\u2019s Law.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s eventually approved by the full Legislature, and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, the proposal would allow prosecutors to impose additional penalties on those who encourage or instruct others on how to take their own lives.<\/p>\n

Right now, the state punishes such offenses, depending on their severity, with a second-degree misdemeanor or a second-degree felony. The former carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and $5,000 in fines; the latter is punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Keefer\u2019s bill would increase penalties in cases where the victim is aged 18 or younger or suffers from an intellectual disability.<\/p>\n

Just days earlier, in the same spot in the Capitol rotunda, anti-gun violence advocates and their legislative allies, called on lawmakers to pass extreme risk protection orders, which they are say are a critical tool in preventing gun suicides.<\/p>\n

Both events come as Pennsylvania \u2013 and the rest of the nation \u2013 observes Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.<\/p>\n

And while it seems cliche to say it, it bears repeating: It\u2019s not enough to have just a month devoted to suicide prevention. This is a discussion we should be having every day, around our dinner tables, in our school classrooms, our church, mosque and synagogue meeting rooms, or even around the office watercooler.<\/p>\n

In 2017, 47,173 Americans died by suicide, data shows. About half of those deaths were by firearms. Think about that number for a minute: That\u2019s an American small town\u2019s worth of people getting wiped out every year.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on MSNBC\u2019s \u201cHardball\u201d this week, Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., spoke movingly of the need to allocate more resources to mental health treatment and suicide prevention. Earlier this year, Wild\u2019s partner, Kerry Acker, died by suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery community in our country has been touched in some way by major mental health challenges,\u201d Wild said during in June during an emotional speech on the floor of the House. \u201cRemoving the stigma cannot just be a slogan. We need to make it real through our actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawn Shatto\u2019s death, along with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of others across Pennsylvania and the nation, is vivid evidence that suicide spares no one \u2013 regardless of class, race, education, or income.<\/p>\n

It also matters how we talk about the issue, the language we use to describe it, by not saying someone \u201ccommitted suicide,\u201d which implies criminality, but \u201cdied by suicide,\u201d which helps lift the stigma associated with the act.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also the aim of a resolution, sponsored by Pennsylvania state Rep. Jennifer O\u2019Mara, that cleared a state House committee this week. Her father, a firefighter, died by gun suicide when she was 13.<\/p>\n

All of that\u2019s important. Keefer\u2019s bill and O\u2019Mara\u2019s resolution are critical. But so are the little steps.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s reaching out a hand to those who are in pain, those who are struggling, those who are feeling the pull of the shadows, and reminding them that they\u2019re never, ever alone.<\/p>\n

That we remind them, as Jackie Bieber said, that there is always life. There is always hope.<\/p>\n

An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, Pa. \u2014 Fighting back tears, her voice cracking, Jackie Bieber had a simple message for anyone who\u2019s thinking about taking their own life: \u201cThere is always life,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is always hope.\u201d In May, Bieber\u2019s 25-year-old daughter, Shawn Shatto \u2013 apparently egged on by a ghoulish online community that provided her with step-by-step […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 19:39:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}