Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism

Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley is a contributor to The Corner at National Review and is the author of more than 14 books, in recent years focusing exclusively on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley’s most recent book is his updated and revised Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement which was named one of the Ten Outstanding Books of the Year and Best Health Book of the Year by Independent Publishers Association. He collaborated with Ralph Nader, co-authoring four books with the consumer advocate, notably No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America.

Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and was honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia.

An attorney by training, Wesley left the full time practice of law in 1985 to pursue a career in writing and public advocacy and has since published thousands of articles, columns, and opinion pieces on issues pertaining to the moral importance of human life. Wesley addresses the entire spectrum of bioethical issues, particularly relating to conscience, patient protection, eugenics, suicide, transhumanism, medical ethics, and law and policy. Wesley’s writing has appeared nationally and internationally, including in Newsweek, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, the Weekly Standard, National Review, The Age(Australia), The Telegraph (United Kingdom), Western Journal of Medicine, and the American Journal of Bioethics.

Wesley has appeared on more than a thousand television and radio talk/interview programs, including such national shows as ABC Nightline, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, CNN Anderson Cooper 360, CNN World Report, CBS Evening News, EWTN, C-SPAN, Fox News Network, as well as nationally syndicated radio programs, including Coast to Coast, Dennis Miller, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Afternoons with Al Kresta, and EWTN. He has appeared internationally on Voice of America, CNN International, and programs originating in Great Britain (BBC), Australia (ABC), Canada (CBC), Ireland, Poland, New Zealand, Germany, China, and Mexico.

Wesley’s books include Forced Exit: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide and the New Duty to Die, a broad-based criticism of the assisted suicide and euthanasia movement, which has become a classic in anti-euthanasia advocacy. Wesley’s Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World explores the morality, science, and business aspects of human cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering. A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement serves as Wesley’s searing critique of the ideology and tactics of the animal liberation movement and a rousing defense of the unique importance of the human person, captured by the phrase “human exceptionalism”. Wesley’s The War on Humans, serves as a companion, exposing the anti-human and misanthropic nature of radical environmentalism and a call to return to a human-friendly understanding of ecology. Additionally, Wesley’s Power Over Pain: How to Get the Pain Control You Need, co-authored with Eric M. Chevlen, MD, provides practical responses for those who are the target of Compassion and Choices and other pro-suicide and pro-euthanasia activists.

Wesley is often called upon by executive branch officials, lawmakers, and policy advocates to advise on issues within his fields of expertise. Wesley has testified as an expert witness in front of federal and state legislative committees, and has counseled government and business leaders internationally about matters pertaining to bioethics and other issues about which he advocates.

An international lecturer and public speaker, Wesley appears frequently at political, university, medical, legal, disability rights, bioethics, religious, industry, and community gatherings across the United States as well as at the United Nations and in Europe, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and other nations.

Archives

Should Scientists Decide Policies About Wealth Inequality?

Wesley J. Smith
September 13, 2026
The other week, I discussed a Nature editorial advocating that scientists be required to “register” with the state. That policy, if enacted, would be a step toward establishing a technocratic rule-by-experts system by controlling what would be acceptable scientific discourse and who would be authorized to communicate about such matters. A new proposal, also in Nature, would push the West toward technocracy. The science journal just published a piece urging the U.N. to establish a panel of scientists — the International Panel on Inequality (IPI) — to determine policies involving income and wealth inequality. From “Why We Need an International Panel on Inequality:” The consequences are well established. A growing body of research links higher income …

“World Suicide Prevention Day” Hypocrisy

Wesley J. Smith
September 11, 2026
You may not have heard, but today is the annual World Suicide Prevention Day. Usually, such efforts are almost invisible. We don’t put nearly as much emphasis on suicide prevention as we once did. I am all for suicide prevention, of course. I just wish that those efforts included assisted suicide/euthanasia, which costs the lives of approximately 25,000 people annually around the world — with that toll increasing every year. But despite proliferating laws allowing doctors and nurse practitioners to assisted suicides — or, as in Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, and other countries — actively kill suicidal people, prevention efforts are generally silent about this category of suicide. I checked on the World Health Organization link to Prevention Day for 2026. It …

Suicide Rates Among Girls Increase

Wesley J. Smith
September 10, 2026
JAMA Pediatrics has published a depressing study that shows that girls ages 10–14 have caught up with boys of that age when it comes to suicide rates: In 2017, the suicide rate of 10-to-14-year-old boys was twice that of girls (male-female ratio=1.98). By 2024, however, the suicide rate among boys was only 4% higher than that among girls in this age group (ratio=1.04). Gender disparities in suicide trends since 2018 appear to be responsible for the narrowing gap, as the suicide rate for boys decreased by 35% from 2018 to 2024 while the suicide rate for girls increased 13%. From 2007 to 2024, the suicide rate for 10-to 14-year-old girls more than quadrupled (from 0.51 to 2.28) while the suicide rate for boys nearly doubled (from 1.20 to 2.38). In 2024, the …

Alzheimer’s Patients in the Crosshairs of VSED — Suicide by Self-Starvation

Wesley J. Smith
September 10, 2026
My mother died of Alzheimer’s disease at the ripe old age of 99. With invaluable help from hospice, my wife and I cared for her in our home for the last five months of her life. Was it difficult? Very. Does that matter? No. Mom deserved the best care available regardless of her mental incapacity. My mother’s brother also died of Alzheimer’s. He received excellent care in the memory unit of a Baptist-affiliated assisted living facility for the last years of his life. Was it difficult? Very. Does that matter? No. My uncle deserved the best care available regardless of his mental incapacity. The compassionate support my mother and uncle received was once the expected moral standard. Unfortunately, that seems to be changing. Increasingly, dementia patients are …

Big Money to Be Made Assisting Suicides

Wesley J. Smith
September 6, 2026
The New York Times published an unbelievably puffy piece about a new assisted-suicide clinic starting in New York as legalization kicks in, describing it oh, so objectively as “a start-up for better deaths” — complete with Buddhist chanting. Good grief. But the saccharine story raises an important issue discussed too little in the debate over assisted suicide. Legalization creates acute financial conflicts of interest that have the potential to push suicidal people toward death. For socialized systems and government funded health care, killing instead of caring for expensive patients can save a lot of money over time, particularly when the terminal-illness limitation is lifted. Indeed, some advocates argue that saving money is a big part of the point. …

Nature Misdirects Blame for the Jason Arday Tragedy

Wesley J. Smith
September 4, 2026
The Jason Arday scandal was a tragedy because it resulted in the death, probably by suicide, of a disturbed man who lied and plagiarized his way to the highest levels of academic celebrity at Cambridge University. Everyone should mourn that outcome. But too many among the liberal intelligentsia seem intent on conjuring the wrong causes for the mess their own attitudes created. Rather than recognizing the potentially dire individual, institutional, and societal consequences that can result from elevating people beyond their actual capabilities, the editors of Nature instead castigate Cambridge for turning on Arday when his fabulism and egregious academic wrongdoing became undeniable: Arday’s fate is distressing, and especially so for Black scholars and those …

More Bioethical Advocacy to Compel Medical Help in Self-Starvation Suicides

Wesley J. Smith
September 1, 2026
Many Western countries and jurisdictions are legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. That opens up a problem for the death pushers. Since states aren’t going to get into the wet work of the actual killing, medical professionals and caregivers are going to be conscripted to do the deadly deeds — even if that means violating their religious beliefs and moral consciences. Instead of resisting this rank authoritarianism, the medical and bioethics establishments are increasingly going along. This proposed coercion includes requiring doctors’ participation in suicides when patients starve and dehydrate themselves to death — known as VSED for “voluntary stop eating and drinking.” As I wrote a few weeks ago here, the British Medical Association just so opined. And …

Wesley J. Smith Defends Medical Conscience on Family First New Zealand

Editor and Wesley J. Smith
September 1, 2026
Wesley J. Smith joined host Simon O’Connor on Family Matters, a show from Family First New Zealand, to discuss current efforts to force medical professionals with religious and conscientious objections to participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia. Smith specifically highlights the danger that these threats pose, as they would drive talented people away from the medical field. Smith and O’Connor also discuss the trend of medicine becoming something like a “vending machine” as it’s been made into a consumer service. “Patient autonomy, of course, is a part of medicine,” Smith explains. “But doctors are not automatons and they should not be forced to do things that run contrary to their beliefs and their ethics.” Read …

Nature: Scientists Should Have to Register with Governments to Prevent “Misinformation”

Wesley J. Smith
August 29, 2026
Nature — the most prestigious science journal in the world — has editorialized in favor of requiring scientists to register with governments as a condition of participation in the sector. Here’s the context. South Africa has legislation pending that would require scientists to register with a government body or face significant legal consequences. Nature applauds the authoritarian idea. From the editorial (my emphasis): What do engineers, environmental-health officers and health-care workers have in common? These occupations can, in some instances, be practised only by people who have registered with a relevant professional body. This typically requires candidates to pass qualifying exams and adhere to a code of practice that includes sanctions for …

“Death by Organ Donation” Pushed in Prestigious Medical Journals

Wesley J. Smith
August 28, 2026
The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote that bioethicists “professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as the unexceptional.” He was right. Radical bioethical policies don’t just appear like magic out of the ether. Controversial—even pernicious—ideas are often debated in bioethics and medical journals where few among the public ever see them. Then, if a general consensus is reached within the field, policies once considered “unthinkable” are “suddenly” elevated into the justifiable and become unexceptional public policy. Here are just two examples. Legalizing assisted suicide was once way beyond the pale. Then, bioethicists …

“Bioethics Community” Publishes Open Letter of Support for Anthony Fauci

Wesley J. Smith
August 28, 2026
I once respected Anthony Fauci. But, during the Covid pandemic, I believe his power and the astonishing international celebrity generated by a fawning media went to his head. Worse, his hubris brought great disrepute on public health institutions and harmed the nation and its people. But mainstream bioethicists — mostly political progressives who deploy their supposed authority as experts to push mostly left-wing health and political causes — see Fauci as one of their own. With the doctor now in some hot legal water, and his reputation visibly tarnished by recent disclosures from his diary and text messages, prominent bioethicists have published an open letter telling us to leave Fauci alone. From the “Open Letter of Support for Anthony Fauci from the Bioethics …

New York Times Ethicist Column Blesses Adultery Because Husband Has Alzheimer’s

Wesley J. Smith
August 26, 2026
The Ethicist column in the New York Times — a high-brow Dear Abby — has blessed adultery if one’s spouse is permanently incapacitated. The questioner is a woman who married an older man. Her husband is now incapacitated by advancing Alzheimer’s. She is raising their child alone and has to earn a living. She still wants intimacy and asks whether it is okay for her to date. The Ethicist’s unethical response: It’s obvious that you’ve had a lot to carry for a long time, not least caring for your husband as his Alzheimer’s has progressed. And you do owe him continued stewardship as his spouse. But given that his condition has evidently left him unable to sustain a reciprocal emotional and marital relationship, these obligations don’t mean …

Should Suicide by Self-Starvation Be Grounds for Hospice Care?

Wesley J. Smith
August 21, 2026
The other day, in response to the British Medical Association requiring doctors to participate in VSED (voluntary stop eating and drinking) suicides, I wrote that “suicide nihilism is exerting an ever-increasing gravitational force.” With this post, I double down on that depressing conclusion. Hospice was designed to care for people who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses until their natural deaths. But a study just published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management — the publication of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine — argues that people intending to commit suicide via VSED should qualify for hospice care even if they are not otherwise dying! What? Why? Because someone dying within six months qualifies for hospice. VSED takes less …

British Medical Association Requires Doctors to Help Patients Commit Suicide by Self-Starvation

Wesley J. Smith
August 19, 2026
The subtitle of the revised and updated version of my book criticizing utilitarian bioethics, Culture of Death, is, “The Age of ‘Do Harm’ Medicine.” Helping patients kill themselves by self-starvation and dehydration — known in euthanasia parlance as VSED (for voluntary stopping eating and drinking) — certainly fits that designation. Two major medical associations now have endorsed doctors assisting in such suicides by palliating the painful symptoms to help patients go all the way to death. The first was the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) in 2023. This is especially notable because the organization shamefully went “neutral” on the legalization of assisted suicide, despite that action being the antithesis of the …

New England Journal of Medicine Opinion Editor Takes Credit for Ruining Its Reputation

Wesley J. Smith
August 16, 2026
The New England Journal of Medicine still publishes objective scientific articles. But in the last decade-plus, it is just as notable for its hard left political opinion pieces about issues ranging from climate change, to race relations, to promoting “equity” (as distinguished from equality), to gun control, to supporting transitioning gender-dysphoric minors, and more. Debra Malina, Ph.D., the first and so far, only “Perspectives” editor — an opinion section where most of the woke political screeds published by the NEJM are placed — is retiring. She has written a swan song piece taking credit for bringing blatant politics to the pages of the NEJM. Malina writes that when she took the job, she had been hoping to …

Using Mild Language to Sell “Rights of Nature” Radicalism

Wesley J. Smith
August 15, 2026
The nature rights movement continues to advance into respectability with woefully insufficient resistance. Too many people don’t take the threat seriously because they consider it too crazy to be real. But the sheer nuttiness of the campaign isn’t the only reason for the movement’s continuing successes. Nature rights activists seem nice. They are not verbal bomb throwers. Rather, they deploy passive language to sell radical environmental and anti-free-market agendas. That seeming mildness sedates some people into wrongly thinking that nature rights is not an acute threat to human liberty and flourishing. A just published puff-piece interview published by The Water Diplomat with Dutch human and nature rights lawyer Jan van de Venis illustrates …

Commercial Surrogacy Turns Women into Machines, Babies into Products

Wesley J. Smith
August 13, 2026
An awful story has broken into the headlines illustrating the moral peril of commercial surrogacy. From the Texas Tribune story: West, a nurse, entered a surrogacy agreement in Alaska, where she lives, with the intended parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, through Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, a Connecticut-based surrogacy agency. Typically under gestational agreements like the one that West signed with Gilkar and Ahmed, the intended parents, not the surrogate, have the parental rights to make choices relating to the fetus. The fetus West is carrying was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at 20 weeks of pregnancy, and Gilkar and Ahmed allegedly asked her to undergo an abortion and they have said they will refuse to let the baby undergo treatment after he …

We Should Try to Prevent All Suicides

Wesley J. Smith
August 11, 2026
The Washington Post has a heartwarming story about a Nashville cop who dissuaded a suicidal man from jumping off a bridge: “It was emotional. This was an individual who had reached a level of frustration where he was having the worst day of his life,” Hotz said. “I just wanted to be able to develop trust with him and help him realize that tomorrow is another day and it will get better.” “It was a combination of life circumstances that happened that brought him to a level of ultimate frustration and desperation,” Hotz said. Even as they talked, Hotz said he remained afraid of what might happen next.… “He was standing on the bridge and did lean over several times,” he said. Eventually, the man chose to …