The assisted-suicide movement has come a long way in just a couple of decades. Consider, for example, this recent item from the San Francisco Chronicle: “Charlotte Shultz [the wife of former secretary of state George Shultz] accepted the invitation to be honorary co- chair (with Dianne Feinstein) at a Nov. 5 luncheon and program for Compassion & Choices of Northern Read More ›
Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith was recently featured as part of a Family Research Council Town Hall on health care. Other guests included House Minority Leader John Boehner, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, Congressman Chris Smith and several others. To listen, click here.
Discovery senior fellow Wesley J. Smith has returned to podcasting with What It Means to Be Human, a podcast about the many policies and proposals in bioethics, bioscience, and animal liberation that threaten the idea of human exceptionalism and undermine universal human rights: On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow in Human Read More ›
I am having trouble keeping up: Every day now almost, it is one once unthinkable thing after another. In the UK, a woman tried to commit suicide by swallowing anti-freeze, and doctors refused to save her! From the story: Kerrie Wooltorton arrived fully conscious in hospital clutching a ‘living will’ in which she stated she did not want to be Read More ›
This article, published by National Post, mentions Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley Smith: Pro-lifers have discovered shared values with critics of biotechnological research and commercial reproductive technology, such as the former Ralph Nader lawyer, Wesley Smith.
There is a sure-fire way to make the news these days: Just issue a press release beginning with the words, “New scientific study shows,” and have it assert a conclusion that the MSM fervently want to believe—especially if the resulting story would serve to debunk or refute a Bush administration policy. Slam-dunk! Your press release will become news! You are Read More ›
The arrest of football great Michael Vick for allegedly participating in a dog fighting/gambling ring has shocked the country. The charges are horrendous: In a throwback to the brutality of the Roman arena in which wild animals were forced to fight and kill each other to the frenzy of the crowd, Vick and his co-conspirators, according to authorities, bred pit Read More ›
This article, published by CNS News, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: “Violence stems from the ideology of the animal liberation or animal rights movement,” said Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. The rest of the article can be found here.
Tearing humans off the pedestal of exceptionalism is all the rage today among academics, philosophers, and other assorted members of the intelligentsia. The war against unique human worth—of which many remain unaware—is being mounted on many fronts: “Personhood Theory” in bioethics claims that granting humans unique moral status based simply on being human is “speciesism,” and hence membership in the Read More ›
Should laws against assisted suicide be rescinded as “paternalistic?” Should assisted suicide be transformed from what is now a crime (in most places) into a sacred “right to die”? Should assisted suicide be redefined from a form of homicide into a legitimate “medical treatment” readily available to all persistently suffering people, including to the mentally ill? According to Brown University Read More ›