Wesley J. Smith

My new podcast is now available. In it, I discuss the dangers of personhood theory and its potential lethal consequences. If you are of a mind, check it . . . . Continue Reading »

There was a wonderful article published in the Times of London by a father and the parenting of a child with Down syndrome. I thought of writing about it here at Secondhand Smoke, but thought the best place for it would be over at the First Things blog. It is out today.In the article, among other . . . . Continue Reading »

Like Fr. Neuhaus , I too was taken with the article "I’m Not a Saint, Just a Parent" by Simon Barnes in the Times of London. It recalled to my mind a speech I gave several years ago to a medical school in which I urged the students to always look at their patients through the lens . . . . Continue Reading »

We have seen this before in the UK, and now in Australia: Humans exhibited in zoos as if we were merely another animal in the forest. But we are not mere animals. We are the exceptional species, human beings, unlike any other known species in the universe. We are moral beings, meaning that we have . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the great and terrible jokes about assisted suicide/euthanasia is the old platitude that “guidelines” will protect against abuse. They don’t, of course. They are not even there to effectively constrain assisted suicide. Rather, in my view, they primarily exist to allow . . . . Continue Reading »

James Kelly, as regular readers of Secondhand Smoke know, is paralyzed from an auto accident and has become one of the nation’s foremost and dedicated activist promoting stem cell research: Adult stem cell research. Kelly has researched the matter quite thoroughly. As reported in this . . . . Continue Reading »

I am sure he would rather use humans with profound cognitive capacities, but at least Peter Singer has acknowledged that great good can come from medical research using animals—and monkeys, no less. (The experiments involved surgical procedures to help Parkinson’s patients, among other . . . . Continue Reading »

The Alliance for Medical Research, which has loose affiliations with Baylor College of Medicine, put out a video, “Regenerative Medicine: Pathway to Cures,” which I demonstrated conclusively is thoroughly mendacious, propagandistic, and permeated with junk biology. Here is how the . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, it seems that my post on Dawkins supporting eugenics was linked over at the Richard Dawkins official WEB site. In a comment to the post, Dawkins explains that the piece in the Herald was excerpted from an article he wrote in another forum. (It would have been nice if the Herald had explained . . . . Continue Reading »

My piece in the Daily Standard is out today deconstructing the ridiculous piece of propaganda drivel: “Regenerative Medicine: Pathway to Cures” produced by the Houston-based Alliance for Medical Research.Science depends on intellectual integrity to be, well, science. Pathway to Cures is . . . . Continue Reading »