Wesley J. Smith

Legatus Magazine asked me to write a piece on the recent successes in assisted suicide advocacy.  I said yes, I wrote, and it is now out.I begin with a brief recitation of the history of modern assisted suicide advocacy, starting with the failed attempt to place a legalization initiative on the . . . . Continue Reading »

I really like Canada and Canadians. (In fact, I am going there next week.) Alas, the vaunted Canadian health care system is sinking in a red ink sea and may be ultimately unsustainable.  From the story:Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s . . . . Continue Reading »

My how time flies.  SHS has been one of the First Things blogs for a year now, and so I thought I’d analyze how it’s going.I accepted the offer to switch to FT because I thought it would improve my numbers—then growing nicely—and my breadth of penetration into the . . . . Continue Reading »

I wrote here a few weeks ago about how Donald Berwick, the president’s appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid,  is a big health care rationing advocate.  Now, his boss, Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has more than implicitly agreed with Berwick’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Pig steals my debating . . . . Continue Reading »

Allowing people to make their own informed decisions regarding the extent of end-of-life medical treatment is crucial to respecting all people as persons.  Indeed, that view was first promoted by the late great Paul Ramsey, the Christian theologian/bioethicist, in his pioneering lectures and . . . . Continue Reading »

Pakistan has passed a law to prevent its destitute from being preyed upon by rich Westerners who exploit the poor as if they were a mere biological organ plantation.  From now on, only close relatives will be legally allowed to donate organs to those in need of a transplant and organ selling a . . . . Continue Reading »

Those superior embryonic stem cells are not yet in any human trials, but the adult stem cell successes in humans just keep chugging along.  A child has now had his own bone marrow stem cells used to help transplant a new trachea.  From the story:UCL scientists and surgeons have led a . . . . Continue Reading »

Social outlaws are in the news.  The USA has its Kevorkian.  Canada, its Robert Latimer.  And Germany, “artist” Gunther van Hagens, who plasticizes bodies for display—including a depiction of corpses engaged in coitus.  Now, he’s offering to sell the body . . . . Continue Reading »

Science capabilities are taking us into ethical conflicts because we are at the place where the most helpless human beings are being coveted for use as objects to be exploited like any other natural recourse.  Adding insult to injury, many justify this approach by resorting to junk . . . . Continue Reading »