Human Exceptionalism

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 ›

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith will be inteviewed by Tony Snow on today’s Bill O’Reilly radio program. Check your local listings for air times.

It is a bitter irony that even as we are enlarging our commitment to human equality in many areas, we are turning our backs on it in others. In particular, we may be about to eliminate from our society people with Down syndrome (DS) and other genetically caused disabilities. With the development of prenatal genetic diagnosis, the drive toward eugenics Read More ›

The culture of death is like heroin: Once you start to mainline, it is never enough. Consider the experience of the Netherlands. When euthanasia was quasi-legalized there by court order in 1973, access to mercy killing and assisted suicide were supposed to be limited to the very few. The killing would all be governed by euthanasia guidelines that, the Dutch Read More ›

This article, published by BreakPoint, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: Timmerman was quoted recently by bioethicist Wesley J. Smith in the online publication To the Source. Smith rightly claims that while infanticide was commonly accepted in ancient times, only the Jews and the Christians actively opposed it. The rest of the article can be found here.