Wesley J. Smith

Each year, the Center for Bioethics and Culture asks me to make predictions for the upcoming year about what can be expected in the field of bioethics. I didn’t do too badly last year—although when my head told me I-1000 would pass legalizing assisted suicide in WA, and my heart told me . . . . Continue Reading »

I gave a speech on Sunday hitting on the threats to human exceptionalism. I brought up my concern about deep ecology’s call to reduce humankind to under 1 billion, as well as Spain passing the Great Ape Project, Switzerland’s “plant dignity,” and Ecuador’s granting . . . . Continue Reading »

Haleigh Poutre, the little girl almost dehydrated to death by the State of Massachusetts because she had a severe brain injury, has lived to see her step-father/abuser, Jason Strickland, jailed for twelve-fifteen years. From the story:A judge sentenced the stepfather of Haleigh Poutre yesterday to . . . . Continue Reading »

I ran this cartoon yesterday in an edition of SHS Funnies. But it is apt here, and not in a humorous vein. Tragically, it isn’t healthy to go to the hospital under the NHS. In the last two years—think about how short a time that is—hospital-caused deaths are up a whopping 60%. From . . . . Continue Reading »

Wisdom teeth are a rich source of stem cells, and apparently they can be used to grow teeth on demand. From the story:As long as there are hockey players, there will be niche markets for false teeth. But the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn’t much of one.Toothlessness . . . . Continue Reading »

Scientists have been working on this for nearly a decade now on making ES cells capable of being used directly in therapies. They have been stymied by three primary problems; the potential for tissue rejection (which we will not get into in this post), the cells’ propensity to form tumors . . . . Continue Reading »

Just another day at the . . . . Continue Reading »

So, a study shows that girls play less energetically than boys. Big whup and, as they say, vive la difference. But some find even this innocuous information a cause for hand wringing. From the story:Girls tend to play less energetically than boys, because they are more interested in chatting, a new . . . . Continue Reading »

Things continue to go from the strange, to the surreal. The International Endocrine Society is advocating that drugs be given to children with gender identity questions to block puberty, which is already done in some places. From the story:Transsexual children as young as 12 should be given drugs to . . . . Continue Reading »

The next time you are tempted to scoff at folk with disabilities who worry that they many people think their lives are not worth living, remember this story. Two medical technicians from the UK have been arrested for allegedly deciding that the life of a man with disabilities wasn’t . . . . Continue Reading »