Wesley J. Smith

Usually my wife Debra J. Saunders—better known as Secondhand Smokette—and I plow different fields in our writing. But once in a while, our interests converge, as in a few weeks ago when she wrote a splendid column about animal rights violence directed against researchers in Santa Cruz, . . . . Continue Reading »

This bit from Monty Python’s THE MEANING OF LIFE, PART 1, is terribly gross and over the top, but it has the germ of a point and came to mind in our discussion of the growing advocacy within bioethics and organ transplant medicine to do away with the dead donor rule and allow living patients . . . . Continue Reading »

This is Part 2 of my deconstruction of an article in the NEJM proposing to end the dead donor rule in organ transplantation. Hit this link to read Part 1:In the end, since the authors of “The Dead Donor Rule and Organ Transplantation” apparently believe we can’t really get many . . . . Continue Reading »

I have now read “The Dead Donor Rule and Organ Transplantation” in the NEJM (359:7, August 14, 2008), by Robert D. Troug, MD, a physician at Harvard Medical School, and Franklin D. Miller, a bioethicist at the NIH. It makes for frightening reading. My comments will of necessity be long, . . . . Continue Reading »

The drive to instill Futile Care Theory is back in high gear after a bit of a respite. But here’s a pleasant surprise: One Eric Gampel, a bioethicist from California State University, Chico, pushes back against the concept of imposing “professional autonomy” in the futile care . . . . Continue Reading »

I have been waiting for this: Spain’s government may be the most radical in the free world, controlled as it is by Socialists and Greens. It is personalizing fauna by preparing to legalize the Great Ape Project, and has pursued other agendas on the progressive agenda with vigor. Yet, so far, . . . . Continue Reading »

With the Swiss declaring “plant rights” and castigating the “decapitation” of wild flowers, it was only a matter of time before these ideas came to San Francisco. I can’t prove it yet, but the evidence is beginning to come in. In this morning’s Leah Garchick . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a story out today that I find very disturbing, for it both reflects the apparent urge among some organ professionals to cross crucial ethical boundaries and promotes public confusion about when someone can be properly declared dead. It involves heart transplants from babies and implies . . . . Continue Reading »

It may not yet be a full fledged exodus, but it would appear that the tide has changed dramatically. Where just a few years ago the clamor to overturn the Bush policy was touted throughout the media and among the politicians of the Science Establishment, it now appears that many of the world’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Whites will cease being the majority by 2042, the Census Bureau reported, to which I reply, “So what?” Human life is what matters, not the fiction of racial differences. From the story: In a new report out Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau projects the nation will become much more diverse . . . . Continue Reading »