Wesley J. Smith

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

Falun Gong Member Whose Organs Were Harvested Proves China’s Guilt

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 12, 2024}

For years, members of the Falun Gong, a new religious movement, have accused China of tissue-typing and organ-harvesting their fellow practitioners to boost the country’s black market and further the Chinese Communist Party’s tyrannical suppression of the FG movement. China has denied the accusation repeatedly, but multiple international studies and exposés have substantiated the brutality with strong circumstantial evidence. Now, an escaped Falun Gong member has come forward with direct evidence, claiming that part of his own liver and one lung were harvested while he was a political prisoner in 2004. From the Epoch Times story: A man who had part of his liver forcibly removed in communist China has stepped forward after escaping the country to draw attention to the …

In Speaker Choices, American Academy of Pediatrics Shows Its Gender Ideological Colors

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 11, 2024}

The American Academy of Pediatrics is a creature of the gender ideologues and the woke Left. I can see no other judgment based on the two chosen keynote speakers for its upcoming national convention.

For Your Own Good: The Looming Health Authoritarianism

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 10, 2024}

If you want to see what is going to go wrong with society next, read the professional journals.

Medical Journal Article: Replace SNAP Benefits with Cash

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 9, 2024}

Continuing my discussion of how ideological medical and science journals strive to redefine almost every public policy controversy into matters of public health to push leftwing agendas: An article in the notoriously woke New England Journal of Medicine argues that rather than give SNAP benefits to poor people — what used to be called food stamps — cash transfers should be provided to improve the “health” of the recipients.

‘Nonmedical’ Assisted Suicide This Way Comes

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 6, 2024}

Certain strains of the euthanasia-advocacy movement believe doctors don't need to be involved when someone wants to die. For example, the fanatics of Final Exit Network have taught people how to kill themselves, with a couple convicted of assisting via helium.

Here Comes “Non-Medical” Assisted Suicide

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 6, 2024}

Certain strains of the euthanasia-advocacy movement believe doctors don’t need to be involved when someone wants to die.

Get Ready for ‘Public Health’ Authoritarianism

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 4, 2024}

If you want to see what is going to go wrong with society next, read the professional journals. Many of our most notable publications no longer restrict their content to technical descriptions of new scientific advancements or the outcomes of experimental medical treatments. They also energetically promote progressive authoritarian ideological agendas.

Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 4, 2024}

In 2016, transhumanism proselytizer Zoltan Istvan ran for president promising to defeat death while touring the country in a bus redesigned to look like a coffin. It was a great gimmick that made him, perhaps, the most famous transhumanist in the world. But his recent piece in Merion West “When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research” took a dark and disturbing turn.

I Was Told the Internet Would Make Life Easier: Now, It Is ‘Personhood Credentials’

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 3, 2024}

Rather than simplifying our lives, the internet has made our lives more complicated, what with having to continually change passwords, the use of multiple security levels, the threat of hacking, and the like. Now, with the threat of AI creating fraudulent content, some technologists are proposing “personhood credentials” to thwart incursions and impersonations.

You Thought the Internet Would Make Life Easier? Get Ready for Mandatory “Personhood Credentials”

_{Wesley J. Smith
September 3, 2024}

Governments have proven themselves quite incapable of keeping information private, as have the largest corporations.

The Pressure Is on to Expand Assisted Suicide in New Jersey

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 30, 2024}

When assisted suicide activists sell legalization, it is always described as an itsy-bitsy change in medical ethics with “strict guidelines” to protect against abuse. But it turns out the guidelines are not really “strict,” nor are they intended to remain permanently in effect.

The ‘Gender-Industrial Complex’ Makes Billions Annually

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 29, 2024}

I used to think that the great push to prescribe children puberty blockers and hormones and subject teenagers to surgeries, and the explosion in adult medical “transition” procedures, was primarily about promoting a radical ideology. But, as a new report produced recently by the American Principles Project reveals, it is also about making a lot of money.

Boosters of Assisted Suicide Want It to Be Much More Common

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 23, 2024}

Doctors killed more than 15,000 people in Canada in 2023. I think that's a terrible toll that should concern even supporters of euthanasia. But in California, some assisted-suicide boosters are upset that a similar number of Californians didn't end their own lives by assisted suicide. In other words, they see Canada's gob-smacking statistics as aspirational.

Violating Religious Freedom, Ukraine Is on the Verge of Banning Ukrainian Orthodox Church

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 22, 2024}

Ukraine is on the verge of effectively banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, accusing it of being tied to Moscow through connections to the Russian Orthodox Church. This is a grievous mistake.

Association of American Medical Colleges Journal Pushes for Residencies in Assisted Suicide

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 19, 2024}

In California, the Stutter Family Residency Medical Program even offers residencies to train doctors in assisted suicide. Chillingly, most of the doctors who participated in a small study on assisted suicide and who prescribe poison as part of their job like it.