Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
Suicide and other kinds of self-harm are inspired by many motives. There is no ready formula that can reliably indicate a person who is at risk, nor is there a universal recipe to intervene. It is a curse that steals far too much light from our world.
One resource that has and can really help save lives is the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This hotline can be called or texted by those who feel themselves to be in the grips of an existential despair. Like the 911 system, 988 saves lives.
However, this self-harm prevention network cannot work if it is never contacted. The at-risk individual must call or text. Without this essential step, 988 is just one more useless potential number on an inert keypad.
This is why it is so critical for this system to be as inviting and streamlined as it can possibly be made to be. No systemic barriers should be abided that might dissuade a dangerously troubled person from calling.
Yet, in its misguided good intentions, Idaho’s legislature did this very thing. The Idaho Parental Notification Law of 2024 was rightly intended to ensure that vulnerable minors were not counseled over the long term on matters of permanent importance without their parents being informed.
In particular, concerns exist that the mutilation of so-called “gender-affirming care” would be touted by ideologically-motivated adults as a cure-all to adolescent angst. Real families have been shattered when, apparently without warning, a child or teenager announced a determination to undergo chemical castration or genital surgery.
Parents only then learned that their son or daughter had been in protracted therapy that led them to the conclusion that such radical and permanent intervention would address their emotional and psychological difficulties
Idaho’s State House and Senate were quite correct to take legislative steps in order to try to prevent such atrocities from being visited on people under the age of consent, and also on those who love them. However, the wording of this law was both too broad and too imprecise to avoid causing inadvertent harm.
One unintended effect of this ham-fisted law was to create a barrier between a young person who is close to self-harm and the very service which is devoted to offering the most effective treatment to such a crisis. 988 services have had to pause discussions with children and teens in crisis in order to explore and receive parental permission for the conversation to proceed.
This is deadly. Among the myriad unfathomable motivations for a youth to contemplate self-harm can include a seemingly irreconcilable impasse with mom and dad. Requiring those selfsame parents to sign off on a 988 conversation in real time can be a deal-breaker for the at-risk youth. With such a requirement, the troubled individual may skip talking and instead act.
This year, Idaho’s Senate promulgated Senate Bill 1199 (2025), which clearly addresses this and several other problems with the original 2024 law. It exempts suicide prevention services from the requirement to immediately inform parents, along with other circumstances when either involve reporting crime or involves time-critical emergency care.
Idaho’s Senate passed this most necessary correction, but the House seems stymied because of the timing of the Senate’s action. In fact, it seems likely to languish until at least early next year when the legislature reconvenes.
The problem with this is that suicidal thoughts and actions await no legislative session. Between now and any 2026 passage of the Senate’s corrections by Idaho’s House, countless young people might harm themselves because they are convinced that there is no one with whom they can candidly talk without the immediate involvement of their mom and dad.
The leaders of Idaho’s House of Representatives should move heaven and earth to override their standard procedures in order to save the lives that their previous legislation have placed at risk. Urgent action is required. Contact your State Representatives to exhort each of them to rise to this occasion.
