Human Exceptionalism

A story just published in the UK’s Guardian is a diary account of the euthanasia death of Mieneke Weide-Boelkes, a woman with brain cancer, written by her son Marc Weide, who made it public. As such, and because it is so awful, it seemed to me that public comment is warranted. The story of Weide-Boelkes’ euthanasia amply demonstrates the abandonment Read More ›

There is a concerted advocacy campaign underway across several disciplines aimed at knocking human beings off our pedestal of moral exceptionalism and redefining us as merely another animal in the forest. Toward this end, elements of the natural world are being personalized by public intellectuals, even as they seek to strip personhood from some people. The point of this ideological Read More ›

When Samuel Golubchuk’s family told doctors at Winnipeg’s Grace General Hospital that they wanted his life support maintained, they were stunned to hear that his doctors intended to remove his life support—even though doing so would violate their patient’s religious beliefs. When the family took thehospital to court, Golubchuk’s doctors claimed that maintaining his life would violate their values by Read More ›

The Great Ape Project was launched just 15 years ago by Princeton utilitarian bioethicist Peter Singer and Italian animal rights philosopher Paola Cavalieri with the stated goal of obtaining a U.N. declaration welcoming apes into a “community of equals” with humans. But why grant apes rights? After all, if the Spanish parliament deems these animals insufficiently protected, it can enact Read More ›

PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – is at it again. When actress Jessica Simpson recently wore a T-shirt bearing the words “Real Girls Eat Meat,” the animal-rights zealots pounced. “Jessica Simpson might have a right to wear what she wants,” a PETA spokesperson said, “but she doesn’t have a right to eat what she wants – Read More ›

“I am an ape,” declared Pedro Pozas, a Spanish animal rights activist, in 2006. The Spanish parliament, which apparently has come to see things Pozas’s way, is now poised to endorse the Great Ape Project, granting chimps, bonobos, apes, and orangutans some of the same rights that Jefferson once rooted in the human condition. The Great Ape Project was launched Read More ›

There is a sure-fire way to make the news these days: Just issue a press release beginning with the words, “New scientific study shows,” and have it assert a conclusion that the MSM fervently want to believe—especially if the resulting story would serve to debunk or refute a Bush administration policy. Slam-dunk! Your press release will become news! You are Read More ›

I have been warning and warning that a virulent anti-humanism is becoming rampant on the left side of the scale, and even within the MSM. A site on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (roughly akin to the BBC) Website—Planet Slayer—specifically, “Professor Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator” tells you to enter and “find you when you should die!” I kid you not. Hit the Read More ›

For the past two decades, euthanasia/assisted-suicide ideologues have worked overtime to conflate palliative care—the medical alleviation of pain and other distressing symptoms of serious illness—with intentionally ending the life of the patient. The movement’s first target was the hospice, a specialized form of care for the dying created forty years ago in the United Kingdom by the late, great medical Read More ›

This article, published by National Review, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: Koontz goes on to recommend Culture of Death, a book by Wesley J. Smith that makes a similar argument. At the time, he didn’t know Smith (who has written for National Review). Since then, they’ve become friends. The rest of the article can be found here.

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the “dignity” of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called “plant rights” is being seriously debated. A few years ago the Swiss added to Read More ›