"Culture of life" cutting off a suicide hotline tonight.

Hopefully this has been diaried before, but if not here goes. We know all those frozen fetuses are awfully important, but look how unimportant actual people are to the Republicans.

1-800-SUICIDE, the nation's best known, private and confidential suicide prevention hotline network, will be shut off at midnight tonight unless action is taken. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA), a division of HHS, has decided to end all funding for KBHC while continuing to owe them $266,000 from over 2 years ago. Instead of sending the funds that were already allocated, SAMHSA has gone on to create their own competing crisis hotline -- which gives them access to callers' private information through phone records. 1-800-SUICIDE does not disclose its phone records to the federal government.

Nice, huh. Over 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year and they can't provide funds to help prevent many of these deaths, because the hotline doesn't give callers' confidential info to the government.

Culture of life MY ASS. They refused to provide a measly $60k to keep the lines open.

A grassroots effort called "Save 1-800-SUICIDE" was created to enlist supporters' help in asking the federal government to make good on their commitment. This online effort sent over 2500 emails to SAMHSA and raised over $7,000 in the past ten days -- but fell short the $60,512 in over due phone bills to keep the line connected.

In response to this campaign, according to KBHC, SAMHSA issued a misleading press release disavowing any responsibility for the bills owed...

Republicans are DEADBEATS, plain and simple. Rack up the bills, leave 'em to the kids. Cut off the funding for all kinds of good programs like this one. Waste the money in Iraq. Now they want to spy on the people who call in to suicide hotlines.

If anyone can help, please contact these folks:

Contact: Reese Butler, 202-536-3200, [e-mail] or Scott Goodstein, 202-518-8332, [e-mail]