Wesley J. Smith

Sick people have been used by recreational marijuana advocates. First, they hid behind medical marijuana movement, using images of suffering people to gain a toehold in their pursuit of the outright legalization of cannabis.  (California voters recently refused to go along.) Then, they . . . . Continue Reading »

The Washington Post headline is misleading: “Scientists Report Possibly Crucial Advance in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research.” In actuality, this is a potential advance in human cloning research.(Scientists have long known how to create ES cell lines from destroyed embryos.)The story, . . . . Continue Reading »

I wish single payer plans could work in the USA.  I really do. But alas, they don’t, and they can’t.Here’s an example of the mess we are in.  Doctors and recipients are suing California for cutting compensation to doctors, and the case has landed in the Supreme . . . . Continue Reading »

Seven Kosovars are being tried for the odious crime of organ trafficking.  The allegations vividly depict how the destitute are exploited at all levels of this odious form of oppression.  From the New York Times story:The suspects are accused of luring victims from Turkey and former . . . . Continue Reading »

Legalized assisted suicide costs us the presence of good people, who had they been given emotional support to help them not commit suicide in their time of health extremis, would be so glad to be alive.  I have written frequently of my last hospice patient, Bob, who had been suicidal for 2 1/2 . . . . Continue Reading »

Penn bioethicist Art Caplan and I have had some vocal disagreements over the years, but we tend to think very similarly about organ transplant issues.  Now Art and four other bioethicists have an opinion column in The Lancet calling for a boycott of Chinese scientists over its barbaric human . . . . Continue Reading »

Surprise!  The mock “Ecocide Trial” about which I wrote the other day, found the CEO of the companies developing the tar sands of Alberta into usable oil to drive the world’s economy, was found guilty of “ecocide”—and in only 50 minutes.  From the . . . . Continue Reading »

That, as they say, is that.  When anti circumcision activists—known ludicrously (in my view) as “intactivists”—qualified an initiative to ban the circumcision of minors, we discussed it at length here at SHS.  Well, that led to a big fuss, a judge booted the . . . . Continue Reading »

In Euthanasialand—the fantasy world depicted by assisted suicide advocates—every family is loving and caring of their ill and elderly members.  In Euthanasia, no one is ever pressured to die early, either directly or indirectly, such as by being made to feel like a burden or . . . . Continue Reading »

I spoke at a conference this morning at which the famous author of Dead Man Walking , Sr. Helen Prejean was also speaking.  I had a moment with her just before the start of proceedings and found she was unaware of the pending execution of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran for apostasy.  . . . . Continue Reading »