Wesley J. Smith

A researcher in the UK is going to begin treating spinal cord injury patients with their own nasal stem cells, and has gotten a big story in the Telegraph and the Guardian. This technique has proved very hopeful in animals and in Portugal, where Dr. Carlos Lima has treated some three dozen human . . . . Continue Reading »

When Jack Kevorkian was at the height of his fame for assisting the suicides of people with disabilities, (he cared so much he once admitted he could not remember their names), he was invited to the Time magazine 75th anniversary party where Tom Cruise rushed up to shake his hand.According to the . . . . Continue Reading »

A study reported on by The Scientist.Com claims that there has been no improvement in the efficiency of animal cloning since the birth of Dolly ten years ago. (Only 1-5% of attempts result in live births.) But the problem is a mystery since cloned embryos and fertilized embryos “look . . . . Continue Reading »

When Sir Paul McCartney’s previous wife Linda died, he donated in her name to fight cancer and to PETA, in support of animal rights. It seemed to me this was donating at cross purposes, since if PETA gets its way, cancer research will be badly impeded.Now, this opinion column in the London . . . . Continue Reading »

The Dutch Government is moving to expeditiously legalize infanticide. It has now created a commission to create the rules for the legal killing of “seriously suffering” babies. This is a tremendous violation of human rights. Shame on the Netherlands and the general lack of protest around . . . . Continue Reading »

This gets so old: In Missouri there is a pending fight over an initiative to legalize human therapeutic cloning. The Missouri Secretary of State has been sued for permitting the signature petitions to be released. The basis of the suit is that the petitions claim that the initiative bans . . . . Continue Reading »

Phillip Nitschke, the “Down Under” Kevorkian is moving to New Zealand because Australia has wisely outlawed some of his suicide promoting activities. For those who don’t know of him, Nitschke was paid by the Hemlock Society (now merged into Compassion and Choices)to develop the . . . . Continue Reading »

A few years ago, animal rights/liberation activists successfully convinced Florida voters to grant pregnant pigs the state constitutional right to have enough space within which to turn around. Now, that may be a perfectly fine and humane animal husbandry policy. But, pigs do not belong in human . . . . Continue Reading »

This bit of good news escaped me until this weekend: Arizona has passed two laws that impact the debates over human cloning and embryonic stem cells. The first, 35-196.04, prohibits the use of any public monies for human cloning. And, unlike phony bans so often seen at the state and federal level, . . . . Continue Reading »

I am often involved in public controversies reported about in the New York Times. In my more than ten years of such work, the repeated examples of biased reporting in that newspaper are almost beyond recounting. What drives me the most nuts is not so much the sneering or condescending tone the . . . . Continue Reading »