Human Exceptionalism

News that a South Korean researcher created 30 cloned human embryos has stoked the hype machine once again. Perhaps a decade from now, the story line goes, tissues taken from human clones made from patients with serious illnesses can be used in miracle treatments for such diseases as Alzheimer’s, diabetes or Parkinson’s. More likely a pipe dream. Many scientists now Read More ›

A little noticed litigation in the United Kingdom could be a harbinger of medical woes to come here in the United States. Leslie Burke, age 44, is suing for the right to stay alive. Yes, you read right: Burke, who has a terminal neurological disease, is deathly afraid that doctors will refuse to provide him wanted food and water when Read More ›

BioEvolutionHow Biotechnology Is Changing Our Worldby Michael FumentoEncounter, 486 pp., $28.95 WHAT WE HAVE NEEDED for a long time is a biotechnology advocate to write a book promoting the virtues of the emerging science, without falling into the trap of demonizing biotech-critics and skeptics as so many latter day Luddites who would return us to the bad old days of Read More ›

The anti-human values that permeate the animal-rights/liberation movement are, once again, vividly on public display. Cambridge University, under pressure from animal liberationists, recently announced it has dropped a proposed multimillion-pound research project that would have, in part, conducted experiments on monkeys in the urgent search for the causes of and cures for devastating neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Read More ›

The “Rule OF Terri’s Case” has struck again. The term was coined by Pat Anderson, attorney for Terri Schiavo’s parents Bob and Mary Schindler, who complained: “If following a legal procedure will likely result in Terri dying, it will be adhered to. But if a procedure could make that outcome more difficult to attain, it will not be followed.” Anderson’s Read More ›

Consumer’s Guide to aBrave New World,by Wesley J. Smith(Encounter, 219 pp., $25.95) Leo Strauss found it telling that Machiavelli mentioned only one other figure who served as the teacher of princes, the office that Machiavelli was claiming for himself. And that was Chiron the centaur, who was aptly constituted to be a tutor of princes because he was half man, Read More ›

CLONING ADVOCATES are playing a shell game with the American people. At the federal level, they advocate the legalization of human cloning but assert that cloned embryos should be destroyed after 14 days of development and never implanted in wombs (the Hatch / Feinstein Bill). But this is a diversionary political tactic. Hatch / Feinstein’s true purpose is to prevent Read More ›

Ever since embryonic stem cells were first extracted from human embryos in 1998, biotechnologists, abetted by a compliant media, have promised they would soon lead to miraculous medical cures for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. First, we were told, all that would be needed were stem cell lines extracted from “surplus” embryos “left over” from in vitro fertilization Read More ›

MEDIA BIAS is alive and well and busily promoting the brave new world. I personally experienced the phenomenon recently when I participated in an educational symposium in Frankfort, Kentucky (along with Drs. David Prentice and John Hubert). Our purpose was to provide empirical and moral support for pending state legislation that would outlaw human cloning in Kentucky. (Similar laws have Read More ›