Garth George: We've devalued sancitity of human life

There can be few things more shattering for families than for one of their kin to take his or her own life.

And how ineffably sad it is when a child or a teenager commits suicide.

Only those who have been through it will know the depth and the breadth of the suffering of those most intimately acquainted with the suicide victim - parents, siblings, relatives, friends.

The rest of us can only imagine the heartbreak, the anger, the guilt feelings, the sense of loss, the mind-numbing wondering which must afflict so many after each one of these unnecessary deaths.

Yet New Zealanders are committing suicide at the rate of more than 10 a week.

In the year to June 30 last year 547 suicide deaths were reported, and for the previous four years the number varied between 531 and 558.

The worst feature of the 2012 figures was that suicides in the 15-19 age group rocketed from 56 to 80.

And, horror of horrors, that the suicide of a child under 9 was recorded for the first time.

What is it, we must ask ourselves, that makes so many see life as an insurmountable problem rather than an exciting challenge; as a penance to be endured rather than an adventure to be grabbed with both hands?

The answer, tragically, is that suicide is simply another downside, as they say, of the society we have chosen for ourselves - or, rather, that has been chosen for us.

We have, after all, been busy for several decades devaluing the sanctity of human life.

We permit, for the most specious of reasons or for no reason at all, the killing of thousands of unborn babies every year.

And now there is a move afoot to have it made legal for the sick, hopeless and elderly among us to do themselves in or to have a doctor do it for them.

We live in a society in which greed and self-interest are endemic, fed by a dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself economic system wherein profit is all that matters and the social costs are rationalised away; in which, it seems, the only crime is to be caught.

We no longer place any emphasis on virtues, which are timeless and unchanging, but spout on ad nauseam about values, which we can, at the drop of a difficulty, adapt to suit ourselves.

We no longer hold sacred the institution of heterosexual marriage, or hold dear the security of the two-parent family in which children can safely grow into maturity having learnt that there are limits, parameters inside which they must live if they are to enjoy healthy, useful and reasonably contented lives.

So we have bred at least one, probably two, generations of youngsters who, having been given nothing to believe, end up believing anything.

Where is the surprise, then, in reading of young men who top themselves because they have been jilted by their girlfriends?

Many young people today are so desperate for human love - something they've heard about but never experienced - that when they find it, or one of its counterfeits, and are then suddenly deprived of it, they decide that life isn't worth living.

We are hell-bent on retaining liberal liquor laws, under pressure to decriminalise marijuana, constantly seeking to invent or import new ways to tempt gamblers.

Thus do we put in the way of those who are susceptible the means of ingress into the sort of depression and hopelessness which can easily lead to suicide?

In such a society is it any wonder that men and women of all ages, and so many children and young people, commit suicide - save for those suffering serious mental illness, the ultimate ego trip, the final expression of utter selfishness and its brutal companion, self-pity? I think not.

I think not.