Human Exceptionalism

President Obama has often claimed that his administration will pursue policies designed to breach the cultural and political divides that rend our country. He has also promised to bring “transparency” to the principal actions of his administration. Unfortunately, the president violated both of these assurances in his recent executive order on embryonic stem-cell funding. The mainstream media—still obsessed with discrediting Read More ›

The media has been abuzz in recent days at the arrests of four people for allegedly assisting the suicide of Georgia man, John Celmer. The circumstances of Celmer’s tragic death cast an important light on the assisted suicide movement that is too often overlooked in the media: Celmer wasn’t dying. Indeed, he had been successfully treated for jaw and neck Read More ›

Imagine that you have lung cancer. It has been in remission, but tests show the cancer has returned and is likely to be terminal. Still, there is some hope. Chemotherapy could extend your life, if not save it. You ask to begin treatment. But you soon receive more devastating news. A letter from the government informs you that the cost Read More ›

This article, published by AdvanceUSA, contains an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: Wesley J. Smith is an influential writer and commentator who has dedicated his career to preserving human dignity and educating his fellow man on the principles of bioethics and justice. He is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to Read More ›

Each year at this time, I predict the coming year’s happenings in the field of bioethics. Such prognostications do not require a crystal ball. It is merely a matter of being informed about current controversies, sniffing the air to see which way the wind seems to be blowing, connecting some dots, and making educated guesses about how things will turn Read More ›

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of tothesource that the sanctity/equality of human life ethic – which holds that all human beings have equal moral worth – is collapsing. Commentators who reflect on this moral crisis usually focus on “culture of death” issues such as assisted suicide, abortion, and Terri Schiavo-type cases. But there is another profound Read More ›

This has been a very bad year in bioethics, much worse than I imagined only one year ago when I made my annual predictions for the coming year. Still, my record as a prognosticator isn’t bad. Here’s how I did: I was wrong when I predicted that assisted suicide would not pass in Washington State: The most important event in Read More ›

This article, published by the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: “While personhood theory is not a unanimously held view among bioethicists, it is widely accepted, particularly among academics at the most elite institutions,” says Wesley J. Smith author of Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. The rest of Read More ›

On December 5, Montana District judge Dorothy McCarter ruled in Baxter v. Montana that the state law banning assisted suicide violates not only the right to privacy guaranteed in the Montana constitution but also the constitutional clause that reads, “The dignity of the human being is inviolable.” McCarter found here a “fundamental right” for the terminally ill to “die with Read More ›

Rights, properly understood, are moral entitlements embodied in law to protect all people. They are not earned: Rights come as part of the package of being a member of the human race. This principle was most eloquently enunciated in the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that we are all created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the Read More ›

Discovery senior fellow Wesley J. Smith has returned to podcasting with What It Means to Be Human, a podcast about the many policies and proposals in bioethics, bioscience, and animal liberation that threaten the idea of human exceptionalism and undermine universal human rights: On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow in Human Read More ›

Between 1994 and last Tuesday, the assisted-suicide movement in this country was moribund. After Oregon passed Measure 16 (the Death with Dignity Act) in 1994 and saw it go into effect in 1997 – despite widespread expectations, myriad state legislative efforts, and two voter referenda (Michigan and Maine) – no other state swallowed the hemlock. Frustrated advocates adopted an “Oregon-plus-one” Read More ›