Wesley J. Smith

My biweekly On the Square today deals with the wave of suicide prevention. I partly blame the assisted suicide movement and the suicide prevention community’s failure to grapple with the pro advocacy of the “death with dignity” crowd.I begin by noting that suicide prevention seems . . . . Continue Reading »

When I was practicing law from the mid-1970s into the 1980s, there was tremendous emphasis given in the popular media and within the bar association to the cause of suicide prevention. Hotlines proliferated, anti-suicide billboards were ubiquitous, and a great deal of attention was paid to saving the lives of despairing people… . Continue Reading »

In the wake of the Obama Administration’s regulation requiring all employers but houses of worship to offer free birth control and sterilization coverage, Missouri passed legislation stating that no MO employer has to provide such coverage if it violates their religious convictions.  Veto . . . . Continue Reading »

Oh, good grief. Should we “uplift” the intelligence of animals?  Transhumanists generally say yes, if only to shatter human exceptionalism.  But really.George Dvorsky, who I once saw give a lecture urging that animal minds be uploaded into computers to do away with the . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times uses its op/ed page as a supplement to its editorial page–that is, most of the articles published reflect the views of the editors. Letters to the Editor, too.The NYT has called for health care rationing several times in the past and published articles by others supporting . . . . Continue Reading »

This may seem counter intuitive, but a lawsuit filed in California against Health Net Insurance, for allegedly denying coverage for life-saving medical treatment, illustrates the danger of single payer health coverage.  First, the story from the L.A. County Medical Association Press . . . . Continue Reading »

I couldn’t believe my eyes: But there it was, right on the front page of the New York Times: “A First: Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells.”The story goes into great detail describing an Iceland research success in which a dying man’s trachea was fabricated . . . . Continue Reading »

The abortion license, ironically, helped lead directly to a view that there is a fundamental right to have children.  And to be sure, people should not be forced to be sterilized, or to take birth control, or have abortions.  Hello People’s Republic of China!But those are . . . . Continue Reading »

John Lennon asked us to “imagine “ there is no religion, no countries, indeed, no beliefs. Do that and the world could “live as one.” It was all pap, but we Boomers ate it up because we thought that would do away with right and wrong, meaning by definition we could define . . . . Continue Reading »

In all the disparaging of preventive medical screenings we have seen recently, the efficacy of colonoscopies remains (mostly) unchallenged. But my dad died of colon cancer—partly because of utter negligence by the Veteran’s Administration in doing proper testing when he presented . . . . Continue Reading »