Human Exceptionalism

Do animals have rights? Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith investigates this issue in light of the dog fighting scandal surrounding football star Michael Vick. Smith argues that the outrage generated by Vick’s alleged actions stems not from any violation of animal rights, but from the violation of his own humanity. Smith reasons that humans are the only conscious organisms in the Read More ›

The arrest of football great Michael Vick for allegedly participating in a dog fighting/gambling ring has shocked the country. The charges are horrendous: In a throwback to the brutality of the Roman arena in which wild animals were forced to fight and kill each other to the frenzy of the crowd, Vick and his co-conspirators, according to authorities, bred pit Read More ›

This article, published by CNS News, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: “Violence stems from the ideology of the animal liberation or animal rights movement,” said Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. The rest of the article can be found here.

In this installment of BNB, Wesley J. Smith discusses the ongoing assault on human exceptionalism. Exceptionalism holds that human life is intrinsically unique and valuable, different from life as experienced by other organisms. Rising to challenge this idea is an array of figures including philosophers, academics, environmentalists, and materialists. Such people seek to erode any separation between humans and other Read More ›

Tearing humans off the pedestal of exceptionalism is all the rage today among academics, philosophers, and other assorted members of the intelligentsia. The war against unique human worth—of which many remain unaware—is being mounted on many fronts: “Personhood Theory” in bioethics claims that granting humans unique moral status based simply on being human is “speciesism,” and hence membership in the Read More ›

Should laws against assisted suicide be rescinded as “paternalistic?” Should assisted suicide be transformed from what is now a crime (in most places) into a sacred “right to die”? Should assisted suicide be redefined from a form of homicide into a legitimate “medical treatment” readily available to all persistently suffering people, including to the mentally ill? According to Brown University Read More ›

Is the Drug Enforcement Administration scaring doctors away from treating pain aggressively? Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith discusses recent reports on the DEA’’s aggressive pursuit of doctors who prescribe pain medication for chronic pain sufferers. Listen to the podcast here.

What do cicadas have in common with Jack Kevorkian? They share a cacophonous anniversary. In June, after 17 years, cicadas are expected to crawl from underground across the Midwest. These grim insects produce such a din that just one can overpower other sounds. Also in June, exactly 17 years after he first made international headlines for assisting the suicide of Read More ›

Seattle –  “Jack Kevorkian’s decade-long assisted suicide campaign was never about compassion,” says bioethicist and assisted suicide expert Wesley J. Smith. “It was about Kevorkian’s obsession to engage in human vivisection.” Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, urges the media to report the story of Jack Read More ›

Jack Kevorkian is set to be released from prison today. Don’t expect Dr. Death to keep a low profile. He is already scheduled to appear on 60 Minutes, where he will be interviewed by euthanasia proponent Mike Wallace. After that, the rest of the media is likely to extravagantly tout Kevorkian as the compassionate, if eccentric, retired doctor who helped Read More ›