Wesley J. Smith

A Canadian MP has introduced an assisted suicide legalization bill that not only permits the assisted suicides of people with “severe mental pain” who are not terminally ill, but also allows the person who assists to not be a medical professional. “Aiding another person to die with . . . . Continue Reading »

El Paso professor Steven Best continues to urge animal liberationists to engage in lawlessness and intimidation on behalf of “animal liberation.” Once again, he analogizes animal husbandry to human slavery: “We are abolitionists. We don’t want to reform them [vivisectionist . . . . Continue Reading »

Dame Cicely Saunders, MD, the founder of the modern hospice movement, died in the hospice she founded. She was one of the great medical humanitarians of our era and I had the great honor of spending about an hour with her preparing for my book Culture of Death. Ralph Nader once said that it is a . . . . Continue Reading »

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams worries that in the end, euthanasia will be about cutting costs. The United Kingdom government’s response to the Leslie Burke case demonstrates the reality of this concern. The ruling body of the Church of England just voted overwhelmingly against legalizing . . . . Continue Reading »

The Dutch continue their vertical plunge off the moral cliff. Now, there are guidelines for killing disabled and dying babies. The “strict” guidelines that are to supposedly govern the murder of infants will no more be followed than have been the other euthanasia guidelines in the . . . . Continue Reading »

The first of what I hope will be an outpouring of state laws to prevent future Terri Schiavo cases just passed in Louisiana. This law prevents spouses living with another love interest, or who has been convicted of a violent crime, from making the medical decision to end life-sustaining treatment on . . . . Continue Reading »

As I mentioned a week or so ago, there is an obscure mental disease in which victims become obsessed with becoming amputees. As I write in this Center for Bioethics and Culture newsletter, some are now calling for the right of doctors to fulfill the wishes of these “amputee wannabes” by . . . . Continue Reading »

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is not an animal welfare organization. While it often masks its true intent behind animal welfare actions, it’s ultimate goal is the elimination of all human use of animals—no matter how humane. This story of PETA employees killing and . . . . Continue Reading »

This story about the hearing on a bill to loosen President Bush’s embryonic stem cell funding policy demonstrates the hypocrisy and the obfuscation that marks this debate on the pro-ESCR/cloning side. First, the “ethicist” Ronald M. Green supports creating embryos for destruction. . . . . Continue Reading »

The Illinois Governor has done what the legislature could not pass: He has issued an executive order creating the Illinois Regenerative Medical Institute that will use state money to fund, among other endeavors, research into human cloning. What the legislature could not do, the governor does with . . . . Continue Reading »