Wesley J. Smith

On my way home from a speaking gig in Edmonton, Canada, I came across this long article in the Globe and Mail, byline Carolyn Abraham, that just got my blood boiling. The story concerns families who suffer a miscarriage and choose to bury their babies rather than having them disposed as mere medical . . . . Continue Reading »

Our media love the outlaw, as demonstrated in this “Kevorkian time line” that omits information about his victims. They are the truly forgotten ones in this travesty of egotism and sensationalism.Along the Kevorkian front, Rita Marker and I have a piece comparing Kevorkianism and . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a protest in Hartford about a teaching hospital educating their surgical students by having them work on live, anesthetized pigs, who have been injured to mimic gun shot and knife wounds, etc. Animal rights activists are in high dudgeon, calling it cruel and demanding that the students use . . . . Continue Reading »

I am not happy: But my ire was raised before the ultimate failure of the bill to outlaw futile care theory in Texas. The “good” bill, which would have required hospitals to maintain treatment pending a transfer to another hospital would have breezed to passage, and in the process given a . . . . Continue Reading »

Interfering with the cold, pitiless, purposelessness of natural selection, the exceptional species continues to strive mightily to save two apparently sick whales lost in the Sacramento River, (who may have been hit by a boat propeller). The effort has made newspapers throughout the country and in . . . . Continue Reading »

It has been more than ten years since Dolly was cloned. Yet, for all of the animal cloning that has gone on, apparently the science of somatic cell nuclear transfer has not progressed very far. An article in Science by Jose Cibelli, formerly of Advanced Cell Technology and now a professor in . . . . Continue Reading »

When Kevorkian wanted out of prison, his lawyer repeatedly pleaded for mercy because, he said, Kevorkian’s was so ill with hepatitis and other ailments that he was on the verge of death’s door. For example, in this Court TV report from 2004:The state parole board declined to commute Jack . . . . Continue Reading »

I have long maintained that assisted suicide legalization is not intended to be permanently limited to the “terminally ill for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering,” (which is, in itself, a false premise). After all, as we have seen in the Netherlands and Switzerland, . . . . Continue Reading »

In this excellent column published in the Washington Post, disability rights activists Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers warn of the emerging new eugenics. Some key quotes:Though society may be inclined to regard [Oliver Wendel] Holmes’s detestable opinion in Buck v. Bell [“Three . . . . Continue Reading »

While I was in Europe, Baby Emilio Gonzales died. The case stimulated much discussion of Futile Care Theory, in which Texas law allows ethics committees to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment—not because the treatment won’t extend life but because it will. The Texas Legislature is in . . . . Continue Reading »