Triad Today

Educators, health professionals, and the media are all abuzz about “The Anxious Generation,” a new book by noted social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In it, Haidt concludes that smartphones are causing massive harm to young people and are stunting their mental and academic growth.

According to Haidt, it didn’t take long for smartphones to have a negative impact on teen and pre-teen users. For example, the iPhone was introduced in 2007, and within five years there was a sharp increase in anxiety and depression among teens, as well as a decrease in test scores. Incidents of suicide and self-harm doubled, and, since 2010, suicide by teenage girls alone has risen by 134%. These statistics should come as no surprise, given that over 95% of teenagers now have 24/7 access to a smartphone (and thus the internet), where bullying, body shaming, and misinformation thrive.

Meanwhile, parents are playing the blame game. When they’re not testifying before Congress or holding press conferences, parents are suing social media companies like Instagram and Facebook who are being accused of deliberately designing features that addict children. During a recent Senate hearing, parents who have lost children to suicide blamed the Internet and called for the federal government to do something to hold tech giants accountable. But parents must also be held accountable. A recent PEW study reports that less than half of parents even attempt to limit the amount of time their child spends on their smartphones at home.

Clearly, Congress needs to regulate social media and parents could address the problem by simply taking away their child’s phone altogether. But since neither of those options is likely to take hold any time soon, we might look to public schools for an immediate solution.

Recently a number of school districts have begun to restrict cell phone use in order to remove distractions from classwork. In some cases, phones must be turned off before class begins. In other schools, teachers confiscate phones and hold them until after class. The problem is that such policies are not uniform within the district or the state. Carolina Journal’s David Larson reports that while the North Carolina School Boards Association recommends schools “tightly restrict smartphone use in class,” it is just that, a recommendation.

Again, some school districts are taking positive steps to restrict smartphone use. In Onslow County Schools, students can have smartphones, “so long as the devices are not activated.” Meanwhile, Craven County students have their phones confiscated until the end of the day, Charlotte/Mecklenburg Schools just announced it will soon adopt a policy of prohibiting cell phone use during class, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth Schools will vote on a more restrictive policy next month. But while these and other counties are taking steps to limit the use of phones, we need a statewide policy in order to effectively address the problem.

To that end, Lee County State Senator Jim Burgen has introduced SB 485, a bill that would order the Department of Public Instruction to investigate cell phone policies now in place around the state and develop strategies for implementing a uniform policy that would apply to and be enforced by all 100 counties.

Jonathan Haidt calls smartphones “an experience blocker” because addicted smartphone users don’t learn how to socialize, develop appropriate habits, or handle loss with resilience. And as with any addiction, one would assume that kicking the smartphone habit would be difficult and meet with resistance. However, there is one piece of good news in the PEW study. Nearly three-quarters of teenagers say they feel happy and peaceful when they don’t have their phones with them. Let’s see if we can keep those kids happy and peaceful all of the time.

Larry Audas is a natural-born broadcaster. In fact, I suspect that a boom microphone and TV monitor were suspended above his baby crib.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Larry grew up in the Chicago area, and later graduated from Bob Jones University with a B.A. in — you guessed it — “Radio & TV Production.” Afterward, Larry worked as an announcer at KQCV radio in Oklahoma City, and as a reporter for KFOR-TV there. Next stop was KPRC in Houston where he won a slew of awards as an anchor, and for his stellar news reporting. Later, in Columbia, South Carolina he won an EMMY for Most Outstanding Newscast, as well as an Edward R. Murrow award. As an anchor for KTHV in Little Rock, Arkansas, Larry won an EMMY for best newscast, and then was promoted to the front office as president and general manager of the station. He remained in that position until 2011 when he accepted a call to be president and GM of WFMY-TV in Greensboro.

During Larry’s tenure at WFMY the station has consistently been recognized for excellence in news programming. More importantly, Larry is responsible for WFMY winning the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters prestigious Community Involvement Award. One reason? His EMMY-winning “Read 2 Succeed” campaign which reached 100,000 urban elementary students with a compelling literacy message. Larry also launched WFMY+, a streaming channel designed to make news and entertainment programming more accessible to a wider audience.

I first met Larry when he appeared on “Triad Today” back in October of 2012, and we have stayed in touch regularly ever since. As an alumnus of WFMY, I share a common bond with Larry, but we also share a common belief that local television stations have an obligation to meet the needs of the communities they serve.

Larry recently announced that he is retiring from WFMY on April 30, so I thought this would be the perfect time to talk with him about his career.

Jim: Who or what led you to a career in broadcasting?

Larry: As a high schooler I was invited to serve as the announcer for our church’s weekly gospel TV program which was broadcast on a UHF station in Chicago. That fueled my interest in television and specifically newscasting.

Jim: Your booming voice made you a great announcer, but you really distinguished yourself as a news anchor and reporter. Yet for all that talent, you ended up as an executive. Did you always have your eye on broadcast management?

Larry: I never looked at management as a target, and as an anchorman I said, “I’d never be a news director.” But of course, when opportunity knocked, I became a news director. It is the most challenging role in any TV station, exceeding the pressure that seems obvious to those presenting on camera. I learned this first-hand. After that, I served as president and general manager for TV stations in Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The lesson here is “never say never.”

Jim: How did your background as a broadcast journalist help you become an effective general manager?

Larry: In the past, most GM’s destined for leadership moved from sales into the corner office. It was uncommon for news anchors and journalists to ascend to station management. Having covered seemingly every kind of news story from hurricanes and earthquakes to jetliner crashes, national political conventions, and sports championships, I was afforded a close-up understanding of what we delivered to viewers and why broadcasting was relevant. That knowledge was foundational as I moved into GM leadership.

Jim: How has local TV news changed since you started out?

Larry: Broadcast TV is still a vital and sometimes singularly local source of what is going on in your backyard, across the street, and in your town. Big Tech — the social media and platform companies that aggregate news and pump it to your phone or device have captured much of the revenue market as they deliver digital content. That financial aspect of nationalized content delivery is pressing local broadcast news hard. Young people and many not-so-young folks look to their phones for news. We’re there too, but what you see on an app may or may not be local, verifiable, and vetted. It would be a tragedy for local TV to follow newspapers in terms of diminished opportunity. I think Big Tech’s pipe dream is for viewers to pay for any and all fresh content. Imagine a day when you will pay, for example, to watch March Madness, the Super Bowl, or other currently free programs. We may learn the hard way that big content is not better.

Jim: Every TV station used to have a public affairs department, and air a variety of local programs in addition to News. Deregulation and corporate ownership have changed all that. How then has WFMY been able to maintain a community connection in today’s broadcast environment?

Larry: WFMY News2 has a historic place in this community and is celebrating a 75th anniversary. Part of that history is an ongoing community orientation and connection. It is seen most often in our news coverage and also in our true commitment to advancing the greater good in Greensboro and the Triad. Food and blood drives, legal help, problem solving for regular folk, and more, are part of both news and community efforts. We take pride in being part of, but also supporters of the people who live here with us.

Jim: Circling back to your comments about delivery systems, an increasing number of consumers are “cutting the cable.” How has that affected WFMY’s traditional viewership?

Larry: It’s called viewer fragmentation. That’s a fancy way of saying that viewers have dozens if not hundreds of choices when it comes to platforms, programming, and technology.

Long gone are the days when newspaper, TV, and radio ruled the roost. We have adjusted and you’ll find WFMY online, digital, streaming, and every other place where programming is distributed.

Jim: Do you ever miss reporting and anchoring?

Larry: Yes, but not with regret. I believe God opens and closes doors, and having been both a journalist and in leadership roles is more than I deserve.

Jim: What will you be doing with your time now?

Larry: To make sure I stay out of my wife’s way I will launch TruFlex Media, a consulting business. I’ll be available to consult, mentor, and speak with those in our profession who I would hope to help. (www.truflexmedia.com)

Jim: One last thing. This fall will be my 50th anniversary of getting a job at WFMY. Are you retiring now just to avoid giving me a gold watch?

Larry: This is exactly correct. The expense of a gold watch for a journalist of your stature and local fame was a chief contributor to my exit. I’m leaving that warranted, but pricey necessity to my successor.

Television networks have been broadcasting nightly news programs since 1948, and while the length of those programs varied, they all had one thing in common — a sense of journalistic integrity in which anchors and reporters presented factual news of the day without personal comment or opinion. Certainly programs like “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation” allowed network journalists to interview newsmakers who expressed opinions, but those guests were neither paid by the networks, nor did they ever try to overthrow the government.

In 1980 Ted Turner launched CNN, the world’s first 24/7 all-news channel and, like the big three networks, his anchors and reporters stuck to covering the news, not making it. Two years later Turner carved out a regular time slot on CNN for “Crossfire,” television’s first talk show where two professional journalists debated issues. Unfortunately, within a couple of decades CNN started integrating the debate format into every news hour. Suddenly their news anchors were allowed to express opinions, and instead of just reading the news, they also moderated a discussion among journalists and political operatives, some of whom were paid to appear. Nevertheless, those panelists, while often politically biased, were not allowed to traffic in lies or hate speech. That news industry paradigm shifted radically late last month when NBC announced the hiring of Ronna McDaniel as a “political analyst.”

McDaniel had served as chairperson of the Republican National Committee since 2017 and was a Trump loyalist until the former president recently ousted her to make way for new leadership, including North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Laura. That left McDaniel without a job, but not for long. Almost immediately NBC came knocking at her door. The Peacock network’s decision would have been OK had McDaniel possessed a moral compass and some modicum of credibility, but she brought neither with her to the new job.

Upon hearing of McDaniels’ hiring, NBC Chief Political Analyst Chuck Todd said, “There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC are uncomfortable with this.” That was an understatement. Todd noted that McDaniel had engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Among other things, McDaniel directly participated in Trump’s illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election. As a result, she was a party to obstruction and her lies were a catalyst to the attack on our Capitol, which she never condemned, UNTIL she signed on with NBC.

Suddenly McDaniel began to back pedal on her support for Trump’s “big lie” and the January 6 insurrection. Speaking with NBC’s Kristen Welker, McDaniel said, “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team. Right now, I get to be a little bit more myself.” No one was buying her flippant attempt to revise history.

MSNBC anchor Nicole Wallace let her bosses know that hiring McDaniel was “nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.” Said Wallace, “NBC News is either wittingly or unwittingly teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections.”

NBC brass had heard enough, and within days of hiring McDaniel, they fired her. Oddly enough, the most accurate assessment of the debacle came from McDaniels’ former boss. Writing on Truth Social, Donald Trump said, “Wow! Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear.”

I suppose that NBC news executives can be praised for canning McDaniel, but even their swift reversal was too little too late. The damage to the network’s credibility had already been done. Their initial decision was hasty and ill-advised. Moreover, their bean counter mentality led them to believe that ratings and ad revenues would increase by simply giving a platform to someone who could attract a large number of radical insurrectionist viewers. Their logic was unsound. Sadly, so was their judgment.

Much has been written about the mental health of Donald Trump, including a book by over two dozen leading psychiatrists who concluded that Trump is a dangerous, sociopathic narcissist (for example, just last week Trump said, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath in this country”). In “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” Dr. Bandy Lee compiled reports by 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts who conducted in-depth studies of Trump’s actual words and actions and warned that his sickness and toxic behavior is contagious in that he has an ability to inspire cult-like characteristics of his followers. In a sense, these respected health professionals warned us about January 6, four years before it happened.

Today that cult is comprised of tens of millions of registered voters who still believe the myth that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Aside from voters, Trump also controls elected officials, and not just on the federal level. His cult includes down ballot candidates, two of whom are seeking high office here in North Carolina. Lt. Governor Mark Robinson is running for governor, and Michele Morrow is running to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I’m no psychiatrist, but based on their words and positions we should all be very afraid at the prospect of these two folks winning in November.

Michele Morrow

Just in terms of job qualifications alone, Morrow comes up short for several important reasons: She’s never taught in a public school; she has no training in school administration; and, Morrow refuses to enroll her own kids in public schools, so she home-schools them. And while her lack of experience is concerning, it’s Morrow’s distorted belief system and violently demented statements that should send shivers up the backs of every North Carolinian.

A recent report by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski revealed a number of disturbing comments, posts, and tweets that Ms. Morrow has made over the past few years. For example, she once posted a doctored photo of Obama strapped to an electric chair, and she also tweeted the following:

“I prefer a pay-per-view of him in front of a firing squad. I do not want to waste another dime supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In January of 2021, she warned that Chinese troops were on their way to Washington to make sure Biden was inaugurated. Morrow tweeted: “Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers are already in Canada and probably Mexico waiting for orders to invade.”

And at the height of the COVID pandemic, Morrow called Biden a traitor for asking Americans to wear a mask, then said we should kill all traitors.

Morrow also believes that celebrities harvest the blood of children, that Muslims are evil, that COVID vaccines are population control, and that public schools are nothing but indoctrination centers where she claims preschoolers are being taught that men can get pregnant, and that lessons on racial equity would make students hate our country (Huffpost, March 6, 2024). All this is a bit strange for someone who wants to oversee the public education of 1.3 million North Carolina students. But if Morrow’s candidacy isn’t disconcerting enough for you, just examine the philosophies of this year’s GOP nominee for governor.

Mark Robinson

After his 2018 gun rights rant to Greensboro City Council went viral, Mark Robinson, a Black conservative who worked in furniture manufacturing, became an instant celebrity and darling of the Trump cult. That propelled him to win the lt. governor’s race which gave him an even bigger platform on which to spew his wild theories and hate speech.

Not surprisingly Robinson is an election denier and a climate change denier. He wants to remove science and social studies curriculum in first through fifth grades (WRAL). When speaking to a church in 2021, he said, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth (CBS 17).” He claimed the movie Black Panther was produced by satanic Marxists (Raleigh News & Observer). In a Facebook post last year Robinson wrote that the holocaust “is a bunch of hogwash” (News & Observer). And while speaking to Republican Women of Pitt County in 2020, Robinson said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.” He once called survivors of the Parkland school massacre, “spoiled little bastards” (CNN), and said that mass shootings are “karma for abortion (Media Matters for America).” And while claiming to be a law and order candidate, Robinson told a crowd in Naples Florida that, “If the FBI comes knocking at your door, it’s time to stand up and fight (CNN).”

So there you have it folks. One candidate wants to shape the minds of our children while advocating for the execution of politicians, and another wants to be the governor of all people, yet hates most of them. Together they are garnering national media attention for their dangerous brand of looniness while making North Carolina into a laughing stock among Americans who possess a brain and a sense of decency.

Paraphrasing a line from the film, Hoosiers, “There are two kinds of crazy. The guy that gets naked and barks at the moon, and the guy who does the same thing in my living room. The first one don’t matter. The second one you’re forced to deal with.”

This year Robinson and Morrow are barking at the moon in our living room, and there is only one way to deal with them. Vote for their Democratic opponents before the Chinese army invades us from Canada.

Despite the dominance of America’s two-party system, our history of Presidential elections is replete with minor party candidates who challenged the front-runners, and, in some instances, directly affected the outcomes. Such was the case in 1912, 1992, and 2016.

1912

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency in 1901 when William McKinley was assassinated. Teddy served out that term and ran successfully for the top spot in 1904. In 1908 he supported his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft who served one full term before he and Teddy had a falling out. That’s when Roosevelt decided to run for President on the Bull Moose Party ticket against Taft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Teddy finished second and spoiled Taft’s re-election bid.

1992

A similar scenario occurred in 1992 when Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ran against GOP incumbent George H.W. Bush. Billionaire businessman Ross Perot jumped into the race as a third-party candidate, and for several months was leading in the polls. Perot dropped out over security concerns for his family, then re-entered the race late in the contest. Perot finished third, but his 19% of the vote knocked Bush out of a second term.

2016

In 2016, former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was heavily favored over Donald Trump, but several minor party candidates, including Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein, siphoned critical votes away from Hillary in the rust belt, and it was enough to cost Hillary the electoral votes in those states. Though Clinton ran a poor campaign, she still blames Stein for handing the White House to Trump.

In each of these three cases, a third-party candidate successfully spoiled the election (or re-election) of the favored candidate, and that brings us to 2024.

As of this writing, Joe Biden is trailing Trump in every major poll, meanwhile, several groups and high rollers have pledged to do whatever they can to make sure Donald never sets foot in the Oval Office again. Among those is Republican Voters Against Trump, which is planning to spend 50 million dollars on anti-Trump ads. RVAT leader Sarah Longwell told The Hill that the group’s plan is to “Target moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning voters in swing states.”

Meanwhile, several independent party candidates have entered the fray including Robert Kennedy, Jr. who Democrats fear will throw the election to Trump.

And then there’s the bipartisan No Labels Party, whose founding chairman is former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, and whose national co-chairs are civil rights icon Dr. Ben Chavis (a Democrat) and former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (a Republican). I spoke with Pat recently to learn more about No Labels and its strategy.

Jim: Why was No Labels founded?

Jim: No Labels is about to select a bipartisan ticket to run for President and Vice President this fall. Many Democratic leaders say such a ticket will hurt Biden and return Trump to the White House.

Pat: Our surveys show a No Labels ticket will impact Trump and Biden equally.

Jim: The last time a third-party candidate fared well in a Presidential election was Ross Perot in 1992 who ended up with 19% of the vote, but failed to win a single electoral vote.

Pat: Perot was leading Bush and Clinton at 35% before he quit campaigning. At that time, 40% of voters did not want either Bush or Clinton. Today, almost 70% of voters do not want a Trump/Biden re-match of 2020.

Jim: OK, but is No Labels trying to win an election or just trying to make a point?

Pat: We will only field a ticket if we believe there’s a chance to win.

Jim: Do you have a bipartisan ticket in mind?

Pat: I’m not ready to discuss names just yet.

Jim: Potential candidates like Joe Manchin and Niki Haley have declined to join the No Labels ticket.

Pat: There is a tremendous amount of pressure from political parties and super PACs on potential candidates not to run or else they, their donors, and political operatives will be canceled. The two major parties are trying to protect their power and money.

Recent history tells us that a crowded field of candidates favors Donald Trump because it lowers his threshold for victory, and because third-party candidates tend to hurt Democrats more than Republicans. On the other hand, a strong ticket from No Labels might make history and alter that dynamic. The question is, are a majority of Americans ready to break with tradition and elect a third-party candidate as President? We won’t know the answer until November.

When it comes to communicable diseases, Americans seem to catch everything except a break. For nearly four years we struggled to prevent and deal with COVID-19, and just as we thought we had the deadly virus under control, the CDC reports that nearly 1 in 5 Americans who had COVID now struggle with chronic “Long COVID” symptoms. To make matters worse, the good old-fashioned flu and its cousin RSV have entered 2024 with a vengeance. In fact, according to the CDC, 38 states are dealing with either a high or very high level of respiratory illness. Nationwide there have been more than 7,000 deaths this flu season, including 266 here in North Carolina (source: NCHHS). And, even folks with less serious respiratory illnesses are experiencing recovery times of several weeks. It’s enough to make you want to call in sick, but if you do, don’t count on receiving a paycheck.

According to a report by BambooHR.com, the United States is one of only four nations that do NOT guarantee paid sick leave. The other three are India, South Korea, and Somalia.

It sounds like a sick joke, but here in the good old U.S.A., only “unpaid” sick leave is guaranteed. That’s the bad news. The good news is that according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 77% of private industry employees have access to a limited amount of paid sick leave. The problem is that we’re not using sick leave as we should, or as we used to.

In the not-so-olden times, we stayed home from work if we had a bad cold or the flu. Not anymore. According to the CDC, 89% of all U.S. employees work while sick. There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon. For one, some folks who have access to paid sick leave don’t want to use it all up during early winter, just in case they might need time off later in the year. Still, others can’t afford to take “unpaid” sick leave at any time. Another reason is that the pandemic changed the dynamic of calling in sick and staying home from work.

When COVID was raging and our governor ordered people to shelter at home, most employers welcomed remote work as a way of keeping their business afloat. And even if employees contracted a mild case of COVID, which only required rest at home, then they could still keep up with their work, and communicate via Zoom. But there’s a fly in the ointment. A lot of people still work at home, either full or part-time, and as the Greensboro News & Record’s LZ Granderson observed, “It’s harder for folks who work remotely to justify using a sick day…how do you tell your supervisor you can’t work from home while ill, when we all just saw civilization work through a global pandemic?”

Fortunately, there is a simple way to manage this balancing act, and that is to avoid getting sick in the first place. I know that sounds idiotic, but folks who have limited or no paid leave can simply do what we were all asked to do during the pandemic: wear a mask around large crowds, and practice social distancing. It’s easy to do and produces no side effects. As someone who catches colds and flu easily, I can tell you from personal experience that while wearing a mask and social distancing during the pandemic, I wasn’t sick once, nor did I miss a single day of work.

No doubt sick leave (especially paid leave) is a good thing to have in your back pocket if you need it, but a little bit of caution and common sense can keep the doctor away altogether. Not long ago, a number of medical and media pundits predicted that once the pandemic had subsided, we’d have to adjust to a “new normal.” Perhaps having to protect ourselves on a daily basis is what they meant.

In our Declaration of Independence, we Americans are guaranteed certain rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, the Founding Fathers said nothing about our right to die. Loosely interpreted, though, one could assume that “pursuit of happiness” inherently includes the right to end our own suffering. The problem is that most state legislatures don’t buy that interpretation.

Several weeks ago, the Minnesota legislature held hearings on whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The bill, which had been under consideration for nearly 10 years, would allow adults to obtain drugs that would end their own life if they are suffering with a terminal illness and “have less than six months to live.” Minnesota native Nancy Unde, who has terminal brain cancer, supports the bill, telling the Associated Press that she “wants the right to choose a peaceful, painless death on her own terms.”

Currently, 10 states permit physician-assisted suicide (PAS). They are: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. The District of Columbia also allows PAS. Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide back in 1994. That came just four years after Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s first public assisted suicide, for which he was charged with murder. Charges were later dropped by a Michigan judge because Kevorkian had broken no specific law.

The law finally caught up with Kevorkian after 60 Minutes broadcast a videotape of “Dr. Death” administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man. Even though the patient gave his consent, Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to eight years in prison. Following his death in 2011, public sentiment seemed to soften to the idea of physician-assisted suicide, still, none of the 40 other states are rushing to legalize this controversial procedure. The question is, why?

According to a Gallup poll, 68% of Americans say doctors should be legally allowed to assist their patients in committing suicide. But as we know, laws don’t always follow public sentiment. In this case, there are a number of powerful factions who oppose legalization. One is the Catholic Church which, according to the Catholic News Agency, says, “Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder.” Others who oppose making physician-assisted suicide legal are members of the medical profession who believe that offering to help a patient die goes against their code of healing and pledge to do no harm.

Beyond that, there are also medical reasons not to support physician-assisted suicide. One is that medications used in the procedure don’t always work. The Oregon Health Authority conducted a study of 1,857 patients who engaged in legal euthanasia and seven of them regained consciousness. Another reason is faulty data given to patients. A study by the University of Chicago, for example, found that only 37% of terminally ill patients receive an accurate diagnosis of their survival time, something that can affect a dying patient’s decision on when (or if) to take his own life.

The fact is that most healthcare providers prefer to let patients spend their last months under hospice care, which is designed to ease suffering through medications and maintain quality of life for as long as possible. This is the route my parents took and, though terminally ill, Mom and Dad cherished the time they had left, and spent it with loved ones. But as much as I support the path that my parents chose, I also believe that every person has the right to take his or her own life in order to ease their pain and suffering from a terminal disease. It is my hope that our state legislature will eventually legalize physician-assisted suicide, and recognize our unalienable right to die.