Human Exceptionalism

This article, published by National Review, contains an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith:

As the House of Representatives Tuesday votes on possibly expanding federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research — legislation the president has promised to veto — there are some real concerns about how far we’ve already stepped into a “Brave New World.” With those concerns in mind, and a big-picture look at all the issues involved in this new world, Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and consumer activist (friend and collaborator of Ralph Nader even!) recently produced A Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World. He addressed some of these issues Monday in an interview with NRO editor Kathryn Lopez. Bottom line: All is certainly not lost. However ….

National Review Online: With the news out of South Korea last week, are we all one step closer to designer babies?

Wesley J. Smith: Absolutely. Apparently the South Korean researcher Wu Suk Hwang has learned how to reliably create human cloned embryos. Human cloning is the essential step toward biotechnologists learning how to genetically engineer progeny, a new eugenics project that enjoys great support among futurists, bioethicists, and some within the science establishment. For example, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, is a big booster of creating designer babies who have been enhanced for intelligence, health, looks, etc. There is even a nascent social movement that has formed around creating a post human species known as transhumanism. Princeton biologist Lee Silver put it this way in his book Remaking Eden: Without cloning, genetic engineering is simply science fiction. But with cloning, genetic engineering moves into the realm of reality.

This article, published by National Review, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: “Here in California,” says Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, “we are sacrificing present medical needs as our emergency rooms and trauma centers are shutting down for lack of funds as we borrow hundreds of millions of dollars each year to pay corporate welfare to Read More ›

Ingrid Newkirk, the alpha wolf over at the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has just issued a classic non-apology “apology” for PETA’s odious “Holocaust on Your Plate” Campaign, which explicitly compared eating meat to participating in the gassing of millions of Jews. The purported equation between the Holocaust and normal practices of animal husbandry wasn’t presented between Read More ›

IF THERE WERE EVER any doubts that the National Academy of Sciences is pursuing an “anything” goes approach to biotechnological research, they were erased by the organization’s recently published tome, Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. The purported purpose of Guidelines is to create voluntary ethical protocols to govern human embryonic stem cell and therapeutic cloning research — “to Read More ›

HERE’S AN EASY POP QUIZ: What’s the name of the first cloned mammal? If you answered, “Dolly,” that would be . . . wrong. Wrong? But wasn’t Dolly the sheep touted by the media as the first mammal ever made “asexually” through the cell nuclear transfer cloning process? Yes, but there are a lot of things you hear from the Read More ›

TERRI SCHIAVO IS DEAD. But her death by dehydration last week need not be in vain. Great good can still come from the harsh, two week ordeal she—and to a lesser extent, we—were forced to undergo by court order. Terri’s story generated a torrent of compassion. (The root meaning of compassion is to “suffer with,” which is precisely what her Read More ›

THE ARGUMENTS OVER THE FATE of Terri Schiavo have sowed distrust among the courts and the political branches of government, and forced a state legislature, a popular governor, both houses of Congress, and the president of the United States into tight, uncomfortable political corners. The pending death-by-dehydration of this disabled, 41-year-old Clearwater, Florida, woman—thanks to a court order sought by Read More ›

This transcript is from an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley Smith on The Rush Limbaugh Show: Direct Transcript From the March 29, 2005 Rush Limbaugh radio program: RUSH: I went ahead and printed out this piece by Wesley Smith at National Review Online. He is a senior fellow, which means he’s a scholar like me, at an Institute. Read More ›

My debate about Terri Schiavo’s case with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty: Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person? Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don’t think Read More ›

Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith, author of the award winning book Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America call upon the Florida Courts and Governor Jeb Bush to take any legal action available to let Terri Schiavo live. “A profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo,” Nader and Smith Read More ›