Human Exceptionalism

Center on Human Exceptionalism

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Coronavirus: Triage if Necessary, Health-Care Rationing, Never

With the raging coronavirus pandemic threatening millions with infection, people are rightly worried that we could face the awful circumstance in which there are insufficient life-saving medical resources available for all catastrophically ill patients needing care. If that dark day comes, decisions will literally have to be made as to who among the seriously ill will be given an optimal chance to fight for life under intensive medical care, and who may have to face a likely death, albeit under palliative care. Read More ›
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Photo by Chris Morgan, © Discovery Institute

Darwin’s Corrosive Idea

In the case of Darwin’s idea of unguided evolution and of a planet of life formed from blind, merciless material processes alone, West notes a range of consequences and impacts, on how we see the sanctity of human, how we understand morality and spirituality, and much more. In an interview with Sir David Attenborough, in 2013, the famed evolutionist called Read More ›

Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska

Biden’s Coronavirus Adviser Wants to Die at 75

Joe Biden has announced the creation of a “Public Health Advisory Committee,” consisting of Democratic experts to advise him about how to best grapple with the coronavirus during the campaign. The bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel — the most famous person on the committee — made headlines a few years ago by writing that he wants to die at age 75 before becoming "feeble, ineffectual". Joe Biden is 77. Read More ›
Photo by Sam Erwin

The Fourth Reich

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and bioethicist, Wesley J. Smith, writing in The American Spectator warns of the dangers of the world turning a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses. Smith suggests that major corporations operating in China could bring pressure on Beijing that might ameliorate some of the worst instances of injustice. Read More ›
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Discovery Institute Announces New Fellow Tom Shakely Joining its Center on Human Exceptionalism

Discovery Institute is pleased to announce Tom Shakely , who serves as Chief Engagement Officer at Americans United for Life, has joined the Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism as a Research Fellow where he will focus on human dignity, human rights, and law and policy. Read More ›
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Congress Should Pass the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act

Unfortunately, the bill is opposed by some opponents of assisted suicide, people who are my friends and whom I respect for their commitment to defending the practice of ethical medicine. This makes no sense to me. The more confidence people have that their loved ones will be cared for properly through palliative and hospice techniques — as my mother was — the less they are likely to turn in desperation to support for assisted suicide. Indeed, euthanasia advocates engage in ubiquitous fearmongering to convince people that their binary choice is allowing assisted suicide or abandoning their loved ones to a potentially agonizing death. In this sense, public support for legalizing assisted suicide can be interpreted as a declaration of no confidence in the ability of doctors to properly care for people. Read More ›