Wesley J. Smith

I get so confused.  We are told that suicide is a right, even for the mentally ill.  Then, we hear that doctors should monitor their depressed patients for suicidal ideation.  From the Medical News Today story:After receiving a small number of complaints that criticized GPs for . . . . Continue Reading »

My, my: For abortion, a gestating fetus doesn’t count as one of “us” to the Obama crowd. But for a White House tour, he or she does.  From the Free Beacon story:The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a . . . . Continue Reading »

If one thing doesn’t get you, another will. Transhumanists have such hubris they actually believe they can become near immortal here in the physical world. But nature doesn’t want us to be immortal, it would lead to stagnant pools don’t you know. And now, a new . . . . Continue Reading »

I warned a few months ago in the Weekly Standard that the fight against obesity would become the new global warming, the excuse for more government, higher taxes, and bioethical “expert” dominance.  In a word, bloat.  And now, the Institute on Medicine proves me right. From the . . . . Continue Reading »

Smithsonian has an interview with the author of evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Boehm, author of a book called Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism and Shame. Boehm apparently researched the anthropological studies that have been published about all contemporary . . . . Continue Reading »

I have heard stories of dining on fetal tissue in China, but didn’t discuss it here because I wasn’t satisfied with the reliability and considered it most likely an urban myth. But this story seems solid. South Korean authorities have seized pills made up mostly of human fetal tissue. . . . . Continue Reading »

Our sense of entitlement—including not only to have a child, but the child we want—is driving us to ever greater extremes. The Daily Mail has a disturbing report about beautiful women selling eggs, rich men’s sperm, and paid destitute gestational carriers—you know, the . . . . Continue Reading »

SHSer Don Nelson emails me a quote from the May 4 Kiplinger Newsletter. (No link):A severe doctor shortage is looming: Over the next decade, a 45,000 deficit of primary care physicians and a similar lack of surgeons and specialists. Some specialties will decline, despite growing demand from an aging . . . . Continue Reading »

I reported here a few weeks ago that the NYT’s Dear Abby-type column, “The Ethicist,” was holding an essay contest to descsribe why eating meat is ethical—judged by Peter Singer—who I noted elsewhere, has no business judging anyone’s ethics—and other . . . . Continue Reading »

It is very tempting sometimes to fall back on the Nazi analogy.  And occasionally, there is a legitimate equivalence, as in the call for euthanizing disabled infants, which was not specifically a “Nazi” program but promoted enthusiastically by a German medical establishment that had . . . . Continue Reading »