Wesley J. Smith

A correspondent—who is a disability rights activist—alerted me to SB 1142, a proposal in Virginia to overhaul its law concerning advance directives. There are several things in the bill that concern me, but she wrote worrying that it would open the door to experimenting on the . . . . Continue Reading »

An unusual situation has arisen in Australia involving an ethical complication arising out of IVF. A woman and her fiance` created embryos via IVF. She was impregnated but then died in an auto crash. Now the grandmother of the remaining embryos may sue to prevent the father from bringing his . . . . Continue Reading »

The book War Against the Weak is the best history of the eugenics movement ever written. (Here is my take that appeared in National Review.) Now, there is a new documentary about to be released—War Against the Weak—The Movie. (Hit this link to see a trailerFor SHSers in Southern . . . . Continue Reading »

I was pleased to have been interviewed by Daniel Herbster for AdvanceUSA about my views on bioethics and human exceptionalism. I thought I would post a few exerpts here, along with the link, for anyone interested in reading the whole thing. First, I was asked why bioethical issues are so important. . . . . Continue Reading »

An op/ed in today’s Baltimore Sun has two doctors insisting that physicians refer patients for abortions if they don’t wish to do the deed themselves. (The term used is reproductive health, and so it isn’t only abortion to which they refer—but it is part of what is meant by . . . . Continue Reading »

I only bring this up because it provides a vivid example of how so much of the West has become, in the old Gilbert and Sullivan phrase, topsy-turvy. The Dutch Government is bringing a parliamentarian named Geert Wilders up on charges of hate speech for making incendiary statements about . . . . Continue Reading »

Well after years of saying it was coming, finally Geron got permission to attempt a human trial of its ESC-derived drug for acute spinal cord injury. (This is not a direct infusion of stem cells, but of a type of adult neural stem cell created by differentiating the ES cells.) This is not an . . . . Continue Reading »

We have a lot of problems, but I was mildly surprised that health care only scored in at 60 percentile as a matter of high concern to the American people in a Pew Poll, with Medicare at 59%—a sharp decline from previous samples. And this was a surprise: Health insurance was at 52%. From the . . . . Continue Reading »

Readers of SHS have heard of the tragic case in Italy of Eluana Englaro, diagnosed for 17 years to be in a persistent vegetative state. Her father won the right in Italian court to remove her feeding tube, but has been unable, so far, to find a medical facility willing to dehydrate Eluana to death. . . . . Continue Reading »

SHS’s good friend, attorney Jerri Ward, is gearing up to fight a case in Texas that is eerily reminiscent of the Haleigh Poutre case. An attorney ad litem for a terribly abused baby named David Coronado Jr., wanted to stop all treatment because the baby is expected to remain profoundly . . . . Continue Reading »