Joy Lucius
AFA Journal staff writer
September 2018 – 2016: One hundred million U.S. dollars, 45,000 deaths, 123 suicides per day.
For AFA Journal, statistics became reality when the grandmother of 14-year-old Anna Bright from Alabaster, Alabama, wrote and asked for help in alerting others to the dangers of suicide.
In her letter, Patsy Howell explained how her granddaughter binge watched the first season of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, and soon after, Anna killed herself in a manner eerily similar to the Netflix series’ major character.
That one letter quickly brought terms like suicidal ideation, copycat suicide, and suicide contagion into grim, glaring focus. Suicidal ideation is contemplating or planning one’s suicide. Suicide contagion (or copycat suicide) describes a direct connection from one suicide to another.
Today’s rising numbers
Copycat suicides are not new to American media. Following Marilyn Monroe’s suicide in 1962 and Robin Williams’s suicide in 2014, U.S. suicides rose 12% and 10%, respectively.
Widespread use of technology has propelled this contagion to new levels, evidenced by the impact of 13RW on Anna Bright and others.
In an October 2017 JAMA Internal Medicine article, researchers examined the flurry of Internet activity after the March 2017 debut of 13RW. Internet queries on suicidal ideation rose 19% during three weeks, with 900,000 to 1.5 million more searches on suicide than usual.
If those numbers were not disturbing enough, AFAJ also learned the Centers for Disease Control listed suicide as the 10th leading cause of American deaths in 2016, with the highest rate of suicide (19.72 per 100,000) occurring between ages 45 and 54.
Suicides of those over 85 followed closely at 18.98, while teens and young adults posted at 13.5. Men of all ages committed suicide at an annual rate 3.53 times higher than that of women.
The estimated national cost of suicides and suicide attempts is close to $100 million yearly. The astronomical figure due to lost productivity and medical expenses is understandable since suicide rates have increased annually since 1999.
Tomorrow’s reality?
Various health organizations and nations worldwide observe September as Suicide Prevention Month.
Ed Welch, counselor at Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (ccef.org), advises taking a hard look at the present as a great predictor of the future when discussing suicide. Welch sees assisted suicide as a potentially disturbing future trend.
In a blog titled “The Future,” Welch recounted Belgium’s legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2009.
Since that time, suicide numbers have steadily risen. In the past five years, Belgian suicides have increased 150%, including many victims without terminal illness or intense physical pain.
Welch described these suicides as a desire for personal autonomy, a self-centered way to maximize happiness and avoid the pains of life. He maintained the Belgian reality demonstrates total disavowal of God and His evaluation of life.
According to Welch, Belgium’s growing disregard for the sanctity of life serves as a timely reminder that any culture placing such a high value on autonomy can justify any behavior that serves self.
Suicide Prevention Month is the perfect time to heed Philippians 2:3-4: “[I]n humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” 
RESOURCE
National Suicide Awareness Prevention Month
nami.org
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Case against 13 Reasons Why
Go to afa.net and click on the 13 Reasons Why banner. Read and watch Anna Bright’s story, and review the show’s explicit content. Sign the petition urging Netflix to pull Season 1 and Season 2 of 13RW. (See feature article in AFA Journal, 5/18.)
Recently, Netflix has been accused of violating child pornography laws by streaming Desire, an Argentinian film depicting two children in a sexually explicit scene. Help AFA urge the DOJ to investigate this pornographic film. Learn more at afa.net.
