Wesley J. Smith

NASA has released a study claiming that 2000-2009 was the warmest decade since records began being kept in 1880.  This isn’t the same thing as saying it is the warmest decade ever, of course.  And I am skeptical. First, Jim Hansen is a panic monger, and I don’t believe anything . . . . Continue Reading »

Are Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid really this dumb?  Apparently, they are attempting to resuscitate the seemingly dead health care reform Gargantua by keeping its most onerous provisions and shoving it through the Senate in a process that would require only 51 votes. From the . . . . Continue Reading »

I guess this is one way to deter the suicide industry that has set up shop in Switzerland: Tax it!  From the story:Patients who travel to Switzerland to die in Zurich’s so-called suicide clinics could face a 50,000 Swiss franc ($53,000) ”death tax”. Right-wing Swiss . . . . Continue Reading »

The Canadian philosopher and bioethicist, Margaret Somerville, has a splendid column out in the Ottawa Citizen on the importance of human exceptionalism and the need to reject animal personhood.  Well worth the read.  Here’s the link . . . . . Continue Reading »

The Canadian philosopher and bioethicist, Margaret Somerville, has a splendid column out in the Ottawa Citizen on the importance of human exceptionalism and the need to reject animal personhood.  From her column:While I strongly endorse their goal of preventing cruelty to all sentient . . . . Continue Reading »

Our legislators are nuts, that’s the only explanation. California is impecunious.  We’re dead broke. We are flat on our faces, so deeply in debt it seems we will never get out.  In short, we have no money, our pockets are empty, we are one step ahead of the kneecap . . . . Continue Reading »

The assisted suicide advocacy organization, Compassion and Choices, clearly opposes the right of medical professionals to refuse to participate—or be complicit in—the intentional taking of human life.  This issue is going to be one of the biggest in bioethics in the coming decade, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Washington Examiner reported today, as noted here, that Obamacare is officially dead.  Other news outlets have merely said it is is dying, with life support soon to be removed.  Whichever it is, the people clearly want to go in a different direction.As an illustration, Gallup has a . . . . Continue Reading »

Huge victory!  It looks like Obamacare is dead—at least in its present iteration.  From the story:Congressional Democrats are abandoning their massive health care package in the face of strong public resistance manifested in the election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts to . . . . Continue Reading »

The new Scotland Parliament bill to legalize assisted suicide—which I noted in an earlier post, permits disabled or dying teenagers access to “end of life assistance”—clearly includes active mercy killing.  From the bill (no link, my emphasis):1. Lawful to provide . . . . Continue Reading »