When my mother was dying of Alzheimer’s disease and the sharp bodily decline that hits those in their late 90s, my wife and I brought her home for care. We consulted closely with her doctors, who referred her to a palliative-care center, where she was prescribed a continually changing regimen of … » Go
Sometimes you have to laugh. In “Transhumanism and the Death of Human Exceptionalism,”published in Aero, Peter Clarke quotes criticism I leveled against transhumanism from a piece I wrote entitled, “The Transhumanist Bill of Wrongs” From my piece: Transhumanism … » Go
“Blade Runner” may be the most influential science fiction movie of my lifetime. The 1982 film starred a terrific Harrison Ford as a world-weary detective assigned to find a terrorist cell of artificially intelligent cyborgs with super human capacities. Led by Rutger Hauer, the cyborgs … » Go
It’s getting very dark in euthanasia-land. Not content with legalizing assisted suicide for the terminally ill in six states plus the District of Columbia — with Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Colombia allowing lethal jab euthanasia — and unsatiated with Switzerland’s … » Go
Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Aldous Huxley must have been shaking his head and saying “I told you so” after Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whose genes he claimed to have edited. If true, these are the first genetically engineered human babies. After creating … » Go
It never made any sense. The assurance that active euthanasia would always be limited to terminally ill, competent adults just never made any sense. Here’s the problem: Once a society widely supports eliminating suffering by eliminating the sufferer and redefines as a “medical … » Go
Transhumanists have seen the future and it is authoritarian. More specifically, it is both authoritarian and anti-human. To make matters even worse, transhumanism would coercively bankrupt the world economy. Beyond that, it’s a pipe dream that threatens venerable Western values. What’s not to … » Go
The Hippocratic Oath is dead. “Do no harm” medicine is fast becoming extinct. Contemporary health care is increasingly under the sway of a utilitarian bioethics that makes the elimination of suffering the prime directive—to the detriment of traditional standards of medical morality that deem … » Go
We live in decadent times. Universal human rights have not been fully attained, yet radical environmentalists insist that flora, fauna and even geological features and structures should be deemed legal persons, a meme known as “nature rights.” The drive to grant rights to the … » Go
Euthanasia is more than just legal in Canada. It has become a government-guaranteed right. But how to guarantee that the legally qualified who want to die are made dead? Unless the government establishes killing centers out of Soylent Green, it will have to coerce doctors into doing the … » Go
Good news on the hospice front. For the first time since the early 20th century, more Americans now die at home than in hospitals. From a report in the New England Journal of Medicine: In 2003, a total of 905,874 deaths occurred in hospitals (39.7%), which decreased to 764,424 (29.8%) in 2017, … » Go
The mainstream media mostly went head over heels over Jack Kevorkian’s ghoulish assisted suicide campaign, rarely mentioning that his ultimate goal was to gain the right to conduct human vivisection on people being euthanized. Suicide Pod Machine The Australian Kevorkian — Philip Nitschke … » Go
A “two womb” baby has been born — proving to me that the new reproductive “advances” promote profound solipsism. From the inews.co.uk story: Scientists have claimed a breakthrough after delivering the world’s first ‘two-womb’ baby to a British lesbian couple. Otis, who was … » Go
The animal rights movement wants to ban human ownership of any and all animals — including your beloved pets — although that is rarely advertised since it would cost AR groups donations from misguided pet lovers who conflate animal welfare organizations with those supporting … » Go
The other day I wrote about New York’s new law that prohibits an employer from punishing an employee for any reproductive health-care medical decision they make. I brought the statute up because it contains no exemption for religious organizations, thereby materially impacting the right of … » Go
Entry into medical and associated professional schools may soon depend on possessing the proper moral views as well as good grades. Say you’re a brilliant student who dreams of becoming an oncologist and saving thousands of lives from cancer. In the not too distant future, if some … » Go
The animal rights movement insists it is peaceable. For the most part — but certainly not universally — most adherents are not violent. At the same time, the movement’s condemnation of violent acts undertaken in the name of animal rights generally is muted. As I pointed out in A Rat Is … » Go
The issue is known as “animal standing,” and activists want to let beasts sue in court to “break the species barrier” and create animal personhood, meaning moral equality between us and them. Chimps were not allowed such a status in New York, as the Nonhuman Rights Project now seeks … » Go
Bioethicist Jacob M. Appel wants the bioethics movement to educate your children about the policy and personal conundrums that involve medical care and health public policy. He claims that “most of us give little thought” to issues that may arise, such as end-of-life care and prenatal … » Go
Speaking of moral value, the professors’ proposed definition would certainly include the earliest human embryos, their status as “human life” often denied by those who wish to justify their wanton destruction or casual instrumental use as natural … » Go
The transhumanist movement swoons over increasing intelligence. If I had to choose between increasing the intelligence of the human race versus enhancing our capacity to love, the human race would be far better off embracing the latter than the former. There is no brain implant for … » Go