Wesley J. Smith

Once again, the a weekly alternative paper comes in with a big story. This time from Phoenix, where the New Times, byline Paul Rubin, exposes the apparent assisted suicide of a mentally ill woman by members of an assisted suicide outfit called the Final Exit Network. FEN members are zealots who help . . . . Continue Reading »

The Associated Press has, miracle of miracles, reported accurately about the planned anti-cloning amendment that Missouri’s own media generally botched From the AP report (in the St. Louis Post Dispatch!) byline David A. Lieb:Without specifically repealing last year’s measure, the new . . . . Continue Reading »

I have long asserted that conducting ESCR and human cloning research is not intended, nor will it long remain, in the Petri dish. Rather, the real game is implantation and gestation into the late embryo and fetal stages, which would better permit disease studies, research into genetic engineering, . . . . Continue Reading »

Once again, a Missouri newspaper simply refuses to accurately report a story about human cloning research in MO. A group called Cures Without Cloning is attempting to bring an initiative to ban human somatic cell nuclear transfer in Missouri. From its press release, how the proposed initiative would . . . . Continue Reading »

Gary Francione has an essay out giving his preliminary reasons for opposing violence in the animal rights cause. He states in part:First, in my view, the animal rights position is the ultimate rejection of violence. It is the ultimate affirmation of peace. I see the animal rights movement as the . . . . Continue Reading »

I am no fan of anti-vivisection societies given that I believe medical research using animals is scientifically necessary and (usually) a profoundly humanitarian work, and these groups seek to end such activities. That being said, I do think they can provide a valuable contribution to society by . . . . Continue Reading »

With the Michael Vick guilty plea, I updated my earlier column on how his dog fighting activities violated our human duty to treat animals humanely for the San Francisco Chronicle. It is a little stronger on the human exceptionalism than the former column, and all in all I think, a somewhat better . . . . Continue Reading »

The politicization of science has grown so bad that science has, in many cases, ceased to be science any more. We have seen this in the cloning debates in which heterodox thinkers about the ethics of ESCR and cloning have been denied tenure and/or driven out of universities. We see it in the global . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s a little hard to see but the little man at the left, who failed to sell the tonsils, is saying, “I guess I should have gone with the appendix.” . . . . Continue Reading »

This edition of my podcast Brave New Bioethics considers the Michael Vick case. Based on my column of a few weeks ago, I describe how the profound wrong done to the dogs was a violation of the perpetrators’ . . . . Continue Reading »