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Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, and consults for the Patients Rights Council.

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Much Ado About Very Little

From First Thoughts

The media is in a mini-frenzy because the Field Poll in California reported that support for physician-assisted suicide is running at about 70%. This seems an enormous margin. But legalization usually polls well so long as people are being asked the question in the abstract. However, history shows . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert Novak has Cloners’ Number

From First Thoughts

Big Biotech’s dishonest drive in the states to legalize human cloning by calling it something else, say, somatic cell nuclear transfer or merely stem cell research, is beginning to be exposed by the wider media. Columnist Robert Novak has it right in this column about the cloning fight in . . . . Continue Reading »

Science Without Moral Limits

From First Thoughts

I have been warning of late that science and bioethics have grown so ideological that many in these and related fields assert that there is a constitutional right to do science. (Evidence of the growing attention being paid to these issues can be found in this press release issued by Georgia Tech.) . . . . Continue Reading »

Hunter Thompson was no Warrior

From First Thoughts

The son and daughter-in-law of the late Hunter Thompson told the Rocky Mountain News that Thompson lived and died as “a warrior.” Baloney. A warrior lives and dies in the service of others; a family, a tribe, a country. A warrior is bound by a code of honor. Thompson lived and died for . . . . Continue Reading »