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” Medicinea 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 NewsweekNew York TimesThe Wall Street JournalUSA TodayForbes, the Weekly StandardNational ReviewThe 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 NightlineGood Morning AmericaLarry King LiveCNN Anderson Cooper 360CNN World ReportCBS Evening NewsEWTNC-SPANFox News Network, as well as nationally syndicated radio programs, including Coast to CoastDennis MillerDennis PragerMichael MedvedAfternoons with Al Kresta, and EWTN. He has appeared internationally on Voice of AmericaCNN 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

Utah Outlaws Nature Rights

A bit ago, I warned that environmental radicals were pushing to grant rights to the Great Salt Lake. Thankfully, legislators noticed and passed a bill prohibiting granting rights to any non-human aspects of nature.

Utah Versus Nature Rights

Utah is the fourth state — the others are Ohio, Florida, and Idaho — restricting rights to the human realm where they belong.

The “Health Community” Versus Fossil Fuels

The New England Journal of Medicine continues to publish advocacy articles that push hard-left policies on controversial issues such as climate change, guns, race, etc. — seeking to harness the authority of doctors to push non-medical political agendas. Now, we are told, the “health community” wants to end the use of fossil fuels.

Belgian Health-Fund President: Euthanize Old People to Save Money

Earlier this month, I noted that a U.K. columnist was pushing euthanasia for the elderly as a way of saving national resources. That call has now been echoed by a Belgian health-insurance official for one of the five mutual-fund companies that provide the country’s mandatory health- and disability-insurance policies.

A Market in Human Kidneys Is a Bad Idea

It is sometimes said that desperate circumstances require desperate measures. But desperation can also lead to the exploitation of the vulnerable. Such would be the case if we created a market in live-donation human kidneys.

Beware the “Right to Health”

Health and wellness are becoming the primary justifications for international technocracy, or "rule by experts." Indeed, we are told that preventing the next pandemic will require that the World Health Organization be given the power to declare pandemics and impose emergency policies internationally.

“Gender Science” Was Merely Ideology All Along

Did you hear the news? England's National Health Service (NHS) has decided that children diagnosed with gender dysphoria will no longer receive puberty blockers because "there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness . . . to make the treatment routinely available at this time."

Euthanasia Poisons People and Societies

Most of the media report on euthanasia in the glowing, uncritical language of empowered patients "dying peacefully on their own terms." In contrast, euthanasia abuses and horror stories—an ever-growing list—generally receive little focused media attention and remain outside the notice of people not engaged with the issue.

Politico Promotes a Suicide

Politico has published a long story about a big-time political consultant named Hal Malchow who is flying to Switzerland to become dead in one of the country's notorious suicide clinics.