Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism

Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the 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

Wesley J. Smith Talks About IVF Clinic Bomber’s Anti-Human Ideology with EWTN’s Marcus Peter

Editor and Wesley J. Smith
May 22, 2025
Wesley J. Smith appeared on Ave Maria in the Afternoon with Dr. Marcus Peter to discuss Smith’s recent article, “The IVF Clinic Bomber Was Infected by Anti-Humanism.” Together, they discuss the recent bombing of an IVF clinic, the pro-death and anti-human ideologies that inspired the attack, and how these ideologies pervade the culture. Listen to Wesley J. Smith on Ave Maria in the Afternoon Here …

The IVF Clinic Bomber Was Infected by Anti-Humanism

Wesley J. Smith
May 21, 2025
Back in 2010, a mentally disturbed anti-human terrorist was shot to death by snipers after he took hostages at the Discovery Channel, demanding that the television service stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants,” and instead air “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.” Now, a similar disturbing scenario befell Palm Springs, Calif., where a young man named Guy Edward Bartkus killed himself, injured four people, and caused widespread property destruction when he detonated a huge car bomb in front of an in vitro fertilization clinic. The motive? According to Newsweek’s reporting, Barkus was a “‘pro-mortalist’ (believing death is preferable to living) or an ‘anti-natalist’ (believing no …

National Geographic Society to Fund “Nature Rights” Advocacy

Wesley J. Smith
May 21, 2025
The “nature rights” movement has really hit the big time. The National Geographic Society — one of the world’s largest and most influential science organizations — is going to pour money into the movement. From the National Geographic website: Today, the National Geographic Society, in collaboration with The Alfred Kobacker and Elizabeth Trimbach Fund, are proud to announce For Nature. Announcement of the new program comes in anticipation of the celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22). For Nature will support National Geographic Explorer Callie Veelenturf’s vision to advance the Rights of Nature movement and provide funding for ten Explorer projects to advance this work. The Rights of Nature movement seeks to bring rights-based …

CRISPR Saves a Baby’s Life

Wesley J. Smith
May 19, 2025
Biotechnology is like Star Wars’, “Force”: It has a dark side and a light side. CRISPR, the gene-editing technique that can alter any cell and life-form on the planet, exemplifies the point. It can be deployed to alter a bird flu virus to kill multitudes. It can be used for eugenics manipulations. And, in theory, it can save the lives of people afflicted with genetic diseases. That seems to have just happened. Baby KJ’s life was apparently saved or extended — at least for now — using the technique to treat a genetically caused liver condition. From the Stat story: For the first time, scientists say they have reached into the genome of a severely ill child and rewritten the unique misspelling in his DNA. The results, published in the New England …

The Case of the Gestating Brain-Dead Mother: When In Doubt, Choose Life

Wesley J. Smith
May 19, 2025
What a tragedy. A Georgia woman named Adriana Smith was two months pregnant when she suffered blood clots to the brain and was later declared deceased by neurological criteria, i.e., “brain dead.” Under the law, that means Adriana’s body is a cadaver. The medical team has kept her body functioning so that her baby can continue to gestate. The baby is now at 21-weeks gestation, which is close to viability. (Whether a true corpse can gestate for months is a different question that I won’t address here.) From the AP story: Smith’s family says Emory doctors have told them they are not allowed to stop or remove the devices that are keeping her breathing because state law bans abortion after cardiac activity can be detected — generally around six weeks into …

The Lies in New York’s Assisted Suicide Bill

Wesley J. Smith
May 14, 2025
New York is close to passing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Having passed the assembly, it is currently being considered in the senate. I read the bill, and much of it consists of the usual obfuscating definitions and pretenses seen in all such proposals. But a few of the provisions struck me as particularly mendacious. First, it defines prescribing poison as a “medical practice.” From S. 138: “Medical aid in dying” means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death. Facilitating suicide is not, and never has been, “medical.” I could prescribe sufficient barbiturates to cause death by overdose. You could too. The only …

Bioethics Is Becoming Just Another Social-Justice Political Movement

Wesley J. Smith
May 13, 2025
The field of bioethics was established to work through the proper parameters of medical ethics and to grapple with the vexing public health policy questions that arose in an increasingly technological age. The field’s primary (but not only) contribution to the public good (in my opinion) came early, through the work of the late theologian Paul Ramsey. In his seminal work, The Patient as a Person, Ramsey argued that forcing patients to be hooked up to “machines” against their will treated them as less than equals. The resulting bioethical discourse resulted in the legal right we all have to informed consent and to refuse unwanted medical treatment, even if that could lead to our deaths. Alas, in the decades since Ramsey’s heyday, the mainstream bioethics movement took …

Andrew V. Abela on the “Super Habits” That Make for a Successful Life

Dr. Andrew V. Abela
May 12, 2025
These days, hedonism strikes a beat in society. We have long been told that if it feels good, if it is what we want, so long as we aren’t hurting others, then, we should do it. But does that kind of self-indulgence really lead to a successful and satisfying life? Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize, Dr. Andrew V. Abela, doesn’t think so. To avoid dysfunction and lead a truly happy and satisfying life, Dr. Abela suggests developing and practicing what he calls “super habits” that can aid us all in making wise decisions, managing emotions, and interacting with other people. In fact, he has written a book to explain it all — Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life. Andrew Abela is the founding dean of the Busch School of Business …

Estonia’s Supreme Court Declares a Right to Suicide

Wesley J. Smith
May 8, 2025
Five years ago, the highest court in Germany declared that committing suicide is a fundamental right — for everybody and for any reason — and that being assisted or assisting others in the act are ancillary rights associated with that liberty. In other words, death on demand. Now the Supreme Court of Estonia appears to have followed the same course. Here’s the context: A man who provided a suicide machine to those who wanted to kill themselves was acquitted of any culpability. He was charged, among other crimes, with providing health services without a license. But the Court ruled — quite logically and correctly — that helping someone commit suicide is not health care. From the ERR News story: The Supreme Court noted that Tammert’s actions did not serve any of …

A Compassionate Doctor Keeps Hope Alive

Wesley J. Smith
May 5, 2025
“Futile care” is a bioethics theory in which doctors are authorized to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment based on their belief about the quality of a patient’s life. It can be cruel — and on occasion, mistaken. Prominent medical journals usually support futile-care theory. But the New England Journal of Medicine just published a contrary column by a compassionate doctor who rejected that approach in order to keep hope alive for his terminally ill patient and her family. The oncologist, Dr. David N. Korones, placed a young terminally ill cancer patient named Zoha in an experimental drug trial. At first all seemed well, then her condition worsened. From, “The Last Dose”: Although the rules of the trial allowed Zoha to remain on the study …

Human Kidney Suppliers Should Be Donors, Not Vendors

Wesley J. Smith
May 2, 2025
There are some 91,000 people with severe kidney disease waiting for transplants. Alas, cadaver and living donors are insufficient to fill the need. That has some well-meaning activists pushing to increase the number of available kidneys by legalizing organ-selling. The psychiatrist and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Sally Satel is probably the premier proponent of this approach. She has skin in the game, having received two living-donor organs. Writing in the Free Press, Satel promotes a bill that would allow kidney suppliers to become vendors and receive a tax credit. From, “I Had Two Kidney Transplants: I Want Donors to Get Paid.” But now, legislation is on the table that would save these patients’ lives while eliminating those concerns. On April …

The DOJ Should Not Investigate Woke Medical Journals

Wesley J. Smith
April 29, 2025
The editors of medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet are ruining the once venerable reputations of their publications by continually publishing hard-left-wing polemics about controversial political issues — such as race relations, gun regulation, and climate change — in the guise of deeming them matters of public health. These woke publications also repeatedly advocate about highly contestable health issues from the progressive side — such as insisting that so-called gender-affirming care is medically necessary and the scientifically settled means of treating gender-confused children. Political and cultural advocacy in these publications is sometimes so strident that editors seem almost more invested in ideological advocacy and promoting …

Marvin Olasky on the Humanity of Homeless Persons

Marvin Olasky
April 28, 2025
Homelessness has become a crisis in the United States. We live in the richest country in the world, and yet one can drive down main thoroughfares of our most prosperous cities and be confronted with tent encampments lining streets, squalor, open-air drug markets, and destitute people begging. The crisis is multifaceted as it is seemingly intractable. What is the role of mental illness? What about drug addiction? Is the rising cost of housing part of the problem, and if so, what can be done about it? What protections does society owe these vulnerable people based simply on their humanity and what responsibilities, if any, do they owe to greater society to help themselves? The problems seem so unsolvable that it is tempting to throw up one’s hands in despair. But that’s …

Discovering Life Beyond Earth Would Demonstrate the Truth of Human Exceptionalism

Wesley J. Smith
April 28, 2025
Science writer Matt Ridley has always had a reductionist view of the moral importance of human beings. He’s at it again in a piece about the likelihood that scientists will eventually find proof of life beyond this world. Ridley thinks that chances of such a momentous discovery are good. No argument there. The universe is so vast and inhabitable (as we understand the term) planets so numerous, it would be truly remarkable if life only existed here. But Ridley thinks that finding proof of such life would dent human exceptionalism: It will be a fifth ‘Copernican moment’ when extra-terrestrial life is finally discovered: scientists putting yet another dent in human self-importance. They showed that the earth orbits the sun, not vice versa (Nikolaus Copernicus, …

In Canada, Euthanasia Might Sometimes Be Easier to Access Than Medical Care

Wesley J. Smith
April 25, 2025
The Canadian health care system is melting down — and yet the country still embraces radical euthanasia policies. Here’s a current example: A woman injured in an auto accident has waited nearly two years for a consultation with a spinal surgeon — despite now having to use a wheelchair. So, she wants to come to the U.S. for a simple diagnosis, which will cost $40,000! From the CBC story: A London woman injured in a car crash says she’s left with no choice but to pay to see a doctor in the United States after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis from an Ontario spine surgeon. Sydney Gesualdi was rear-ended at a red light in July 2023, after which she was initially diagnosed with whiplash and tissue damage. In the weeks that followed, the …

New Jersey Program Aims to Prevent Suicide — Just Not All Suicides

Wesley J. Smith
April 23, 2025
New Jersey has started an admirable program to prevent suicide. From the NJ.com story: A new state program will send trained mental health professionals and people with lived experience to respond to adults who contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams, which consist of one peer and one professional, will be dispatched through the state’s 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline centers to help adults struggling with mental illness and substance use disorder, without the need for police. “Today’s announcement underscores that — in New Jersey — help is truly only a phone call or text message away,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement announcing the program’s launch. That’s great. Too bad the effort won’t …