Suzys Law By: Bailey Galella & Sehrish Salim

H.R Suzanna Gonzales Suicide Prevention Act of 2011 This bill will make it illegal to post anything online teaching someone how to commit suicide or providing them with materials to do so.

Meet Suzy This is Suzy Gonzales. She was a fun, loving, kind nineteen year old in college. She was very intelligent and all she wanted to do was make everyone smile. Suzy earned a four-year, full-ride scholarship to Florida State University for being a national Hispanic scholar finalist.

On March 23, 2003 Suzy Gonzales killed herself…. Because she was encouraged to by an online suicide group. while in college

As of today, there have been a total of 24 self proclaimed successes by this website. Suzy was the 14 th confirmed death by this group.

H.R It is currently legal to encourage a suicidal person to go through with their death. Or is it? After all, its just freedom of speech. Or is it? That is why this bill will make it illegal for anyone to go on the internet and help a person thinking about suicide to go through with the act or providing them with materials to do so. Persuading someone to commit suicide is morally comparable to the act of murder itself.

This is not okay! Suicide is the 11 th leading cause of death for all Americans. An average of one person dies by suicide every 15 minutes. Suicide take the lives of nearly 34,000 Americans each year. There are twice as many deaths due to suicide than HIV/AIDS. For young people, year olds, suicide is the 3 rd leading cause of death. 15% of people that are clinically depressed die by suicide. The strongest risk factor for suicide is depression. There are more suicides than accidents, murder, and war combined. These rising statistics can be prevented with the help of H.R

The bill is currently stuck in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. If this bill is not passed, people will be able to get away with what should be considered murder and websites will continue to gain successes. Families will have to deal with losing their loved ones and not knowing why because they turned to a website.

Suzy Gonzales died because she was depressed and did not want to turn to her family. Instead she turned to a website that encouraged and taught her how to do the unthinkable. This should be punishable by law so no one else has to die. More information can be found at these websites: Suzyslaw.com Suzygonzales.com And visit our website: