Wesley J. Smith

I wrote today about how the court ruling banning circumcision in Germany violates freedom of religion. I also predicted earlier that the ruling would not stand. My predictions are usually right. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the ruling reversed by the German Parliament. From . . . . Continue Reading »

First an Indian “gestational carrier” died in childbirth. Now, we learn that a 17-year-old Indian girl is dead after predators in the IVF industry allowed her to be hyper-ovulated for money three times in 18 months, and she was apparently convinced or coerced by her employer to . . . . Continue Reading »

I will be doing an every-other-Friday column for First Things’ “On the Square,” and am most pleased. Today, I illustrate how bioethical issues have become the battle ground for a secularist assault against freedom of religion, by seeking to shrink the core liberty to a . . . . Continue Reading »

Until very recently, the West saw religious liberty as a weight-bearing pillar of human freedom. Thus, the very first clause of the First Amendment (1789) states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” More broadly, Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) provides … Continue Reading »

I have a piece up on To The Source discussing the serious charge that the Liverpool Care Pathway, intended to ensure that no patient dies in unalleviated pain, has mutated into back door euthanasia.  I explain why palliative sedation is not killing, and then show how what should be a very . . . . Continue Reading »

The New England Journal of Medicine has long advocated assisted suicide in its pages.  It now has a piece supposedly rebutting opponents of legalizing assisted suicide in Oregon.  For example, it says that assisted suicide was not carried out on people with mental illnesses.  How we . . . . Continue Reading »

Somebody really doesn’t want you to read Secondhand Smoke. Last week, an attack of some sort made Google, Firefox, and other sites think coming here could hurt readers’ computers.  Joe, the IT guy got rid of it. And now it is back.  Don’t you love freedom lovers?I am . . . . Continue Reading »

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine was sold to a gullible public on the promise of developing embryonic stem cell and therapeutic cloning CURES! CURES! CURES! that the eeeevilll Bush was thwarting. But, when that didn’t work out—and desperate to show some . . . . Continue Reading »

If I were a state governor, I would refuse to expand Medicaid under Obamacare because that is how the Feds seduce states into making financial commitments they can’t afford—pay for it at first and then later, pull out the rug.  (O-care pays 100% for awhile, then 90%.  But that . . . . Continue Reading »

Once a society accepts the fundamental premises of assisted suicide—e.g., radical individualism and killing as an acceptable answer to suffering—there really are no brakes.  Switzerland more than aptly demonstrates the thesis.  Assisted suicide is up there 60% in the last five . . . . Continue Reading »