Wesley J. Smith

One of the most insidious and selfish arguments of assisted suicide advocates is that pain control hastens death so that it is no different than assisted suicide. This can keep patients from accepting aggressive pain control and doctors reluctant to prescribe it. Pain control experts, such as my . . . . Continue Reading »

My post yesterday about the lawsuit in Austria to grant a chimp the rights of personhood, linked to this post from 2005 about a chimp being issued a writ of habeas corpus in Brazil. That old post was, in turn, linked on science.slashdot.org, resulting in thousands of visitors to SHS, and many . . . . Continue Reading »

Stories like this terrify the disability rights community—and with good reason. The message is that the lives of people with profound disabilities are of less value than those of others. In this case, an Australian couple murdered their disabled son, Matthew Sutton, who was blind and . . . . Continue Reading »

In this Brave New Bioethics podcast, I return to the mendacious Feinstein-Hatch pro cloning bill (S. 812) that pretends to outlaw it by redefining the term “human cloning” from an accurate scientific approach into a junk biology political definition. As I point out, you can call a . . . . Continue Reading »

I recently spoke at Gonzaga Law School about the animal rights movement. I trust a good time was had by all. Now, I find out that it isn’t just animals that are supposed to have rights, but nature itself (herself?).This was sent to me by a friend about an upcoming event at Gonzaga: Rights of . . . . Continue Reading »

I make a lot of speeches, and in recent years I have been warning many of my audiences that serious efforts are afoot to grant animals “human” rights, including the right to bring lawsuits as “persons.” (This is one of the goals of the “Great Ape Project,” for . . . . Continue Reading »

When I read the transcript of this puff radio report from the Netherlands on the 5th anniversary of the formal legalization of euthanasia in that country (it has actually been permitted since 1973), I saw red. Dr. Herbert Hendin, has pointed out in his fine book Seduced by Death, that Dutch doctors . . . . Continue Reading »

In his book Seduced by Death , Herbert Hendin reported that one reason the Dutch people have not turned against their euthanasia law is that doctors and the media in Holland do not candidly report about the many abuses and violations of the law that occur with regard to their country’s . . . . Continue Reading »

If this works in animal testing, it could be a great breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease. Scientists have taken stem cells from bone marrow and, using a scaffold, engineered them into new heart valves. From the story in the Guardian:Growing a suitably-sized piece of tissue from a . . . . Continue Reading »

Take this story as just one example: Scientists have used bacterial enzymes to convert one blood type into another, potentially ending the threat of blood shortages. There is a lot going on out there that is entirely laudable and has nothing whatsoever to do with embryonic stem cell research or . . . . Continue Reading »