Human Exceptionalism

What if hospitals could put a sign over their doors stating, “We reserve the right to refuse life-sustaining care?” People would be outraged. Yet that is precisely what Texas law explicitly grants to hospitals — namely, to say no to wanted life-sustaining treatment, on the basis of subjective judgments about the quality of the patient’s life. It is an example of a Read More ›

Should doctors or others be permitted to euthanize babies born with disabilities or assist the suicides of suffering people who want to die? During the first forty years of the twentieth century, fueled by the eugenics movement, the question was very much on the table. Then the Holocaust, in which euthanasia of the disabled played a central role, demonstrated the Read More ›

Brave New Bioethics Brave New Bioethics is a series of podcasts recorded by Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith exploring the many policies and proposals in bioethics, bioscience, and animal liberation that threaten the belief that human life has worth merely and simply because it is human. Episodes are listed below. Cloning Double Talk Hospice Association Refuses to Denounce Read More ›

Here we go again. For the fourth time in eight years, a bill is moving through the California Legislature to legalize physician-assisted suicide. If history is any guide, assisted-suicide proponents and the media will cast the debate in strictly religious terms — as the Catholic Church versus rational modernists. But the coalition opposing AB374 is a broad and diverse political Read More ›

Senators Dianne Feinstein and Orin Hatch have just introduced Senate Bill 812, which explicitly legalizes human cloning and—since a shortage of human eggs is currently impeding human cloning research (one egg is needed for each attempt at cloning)—the bill also authorizes researchers to pay women to undergo egg procurement. And if the purpose of the legislation wasn’t bad enough, there’s Read More ›

The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine has just released a position statement on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, in which it abdicates its core professional responsibility. On the impropriety of permitting doctors to help kill their patients, the association has assumed a position of “studied neutrality.” One of the AAHPM’s stated missions is to engage in “public policy Read More ›

The Vermont legislature has fast-tracked a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide, and California may not be far behind. If the legislatures in these states do vote to redefine physician-assisted suicide as a legitimate and legal “medical treatment,” a large part of the blame, strange though it may sound, can be laid at the feet of postmodernism. The deconstruction of language, Read More ›

“Choice” my foot: If  the new bill to legalize assisted suicide in California (A.B. 374) becomes law, Catholic nursing homes will be legally required to permit assisted suicide to be committed within their premises, even though doing so would be a profound violation of Catholic moral teaching. In-patient hospice facilities would be similarly coerced, despite assisted suicide being a direct affront to Read More ›

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) recently announced its “Guidelines for the Conduct of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.” The results are not encouraging. The Guidelines claim to “emphasize the responsibility of scientists to ensure that human stem cell research is carried out according to rigorous standard of research ethics.” But saying it doesn’t make it so. What the Read More ›

Doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital admitted that they surgically removed a six-year-old girl’s healthy uterus, breast buds, and appendix, and then subjected her to two years of high-dose estrogen injections to keep her from reaching adult stature. And they did so at her parents’ request. Sounds like a clear case of child abuse, doesn’t it? Not so fast. Many are Read More ›

The Swiss Supreme Court has ruled that people with mental illnesses can be legally assisted in suicide. The case came about when a member of Dignitas, an organization that, for a fee, provides a safe house for, and assistance with, suicide, brought a lawsuit seeking the right to have his death facilitated. The man does not have cancer, AIDS, or Read More ›

To the Editor: Peter Singer (“A Convenient Truth,” Op-Ed, Jan. 26) supports subjecting “Ashley,” a profoundly intellectually disabled girl, to surgical and hormonal interventions to keep her small. In backing her parents’ decision, he asserts that she has value only “because her parents and siblings love her and care about her.” By denying Ashley’s equal moral worth simply for being Read More ›