Center on Human Exceptionalism
SEATTLE, NOV. 8 – Welcome to brave new biotech world where according to Discovery Institute senior fellow and acclaimed bioethicist Wesley J. Smith the question is “whether science will continue to serve society, or instead dominate it.” Cloning researchers claim to have cloned an embryo that is mostly human, but also part animal. Biotech companies brag about manufacturing human embryos Read More ›
As I travel the country speaking about the many ongoing controversies in bioethics, I am occasionally approached by grieving people who believe that a catastrophically injured relative who had been declared “brain dead” did not die from injuries but was actually killed during organ procurement. I always assure these emotionally devastated folks that as far as I have been able Read More ›
CALIFORNIA IS FLAT BROKE, its budget a fiscal train wreck. Expenses have so far exceeded state revenues that this spring citizens of the Golden State were forced to pass a bond measure borrowing $15 billion (not including interest) just to keep the state afloat. And now, the Piper must be paid to restore fiscal stability.The budget crisis is causing a Read More ›
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His next book, Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, will be released this fall. DOES THE FIRST AMENDMENT guarantee the right to conduct research into human cloning? The question seems silly. But, according to the Read More ›
First, Dutch euthanasia advocates said that patient killing will be limited to the competent, terminally ill who ask for it. Then, when doctors began euthanizing patients who clearly were not terminally ill, sweat not, they soothed: medicalized killing will be limited to competent people with incurable illnesses or disabilities. Then, when doctors began killing patients who were depressed but not Read More ›
MY STATE of California now has three United States senators. No, we weren’t granted increased representation because we are the biggest state. Rather, New Jersey Democratic senator Jon Corzine just tried to boost California’s biotech sector by personally donating $100,000 to help pass Proposition 71, an initiative on the November ballot that would force Californians to borrow $3 billion over Read More ›
ASSISTED SUICIDE/EUTHANASIA activists are sure a restless bunch. They never seem able to settle on the right terminology to convince people to support legalizing mercy killing. First, it was euthanasia, a perfectly fine word that had a meaning generally akin to today’s concept of hospice before being hijacked by the right-to-die crowd in the early 20th century. When “euthanasia” didn’t Read More ›
“British scientists have been given permission to perform therapeutic cloning using human embryos for the first time,” reported the August 11, 2004, BBC News. What a remarkable statement. Not the fact that the UK will permit researchers to create human cloned embryos-that has been on the drawing board for some time. What made this report so startling was that the Read More ›
Preaching Eugenics Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movementby Christine RosenOxford University Press, 296 pp., $35 EUGENICS—now, there’s one of those words that has a dated, distant sound: a remnant of Victorian arrogance that got taken up by the Nazis and made an excuse for murder. But that is ancient history. We would never stoop to such evil. We have Read More ›
John Kerry has a well-deserved reputation for waffling and attempting to get on every side of every issue. Now, he’s done it again by signing up as a co-sponsor (along with Senators Orin Hatch and Dianne Feinstein) of what could be called the Human Cloning Legalization and Legitimization Act of 2003 (S. 303). The legislation isn’t really called that. Such Read More ›