Wesley J. Smith

I have written about this before—the phenomenon of political or ideological advocacy masking as objective scientific studies and then published in prestigious medical and other professional journals. (So have others who I admire.) Ironically, in the post I link above, I quoted an article . . . . Continue Reading »

Japan’s system of health care boasts of universal coverage and free screenings. But there seems to be trouble brewing in the Land of the Rising Sun exemplified by the tragedy of a patient with serious head injuries dying after he was refused care by 14 hospitals because there was no room for . . . . Continue Reading »

Yet another media biggie has written an article about the crisis in newspapers—which is all too real—and missed a huge reason for the problem. There must be a template circulating for these kind of articles, because it reflects the media’s notorious “group-think” by . . . . Continue Reading »

A San Francisco man named John West has alerted the media—in a book—that he helped his parents commit suicide. From the story: For attorney and author John West, his parents were lifelong sources of comfort, wisdom and pride. But West has been keeping a 10-year-old secret about his . . . . Continue Reading »

Can you imagine? A New Jersey man named Jesse Coltrane was communicating on-line with a friend in California when he found out the young man was apparently killing himself. Instead of respecting his friend’s autonomy, he became judgmental and interfered! From the story:During an online . . . . Continue Reading »

In this edition of my podcast What It Means to be Human, I return to Switzerland’s Constitution declaring plant “dignity,” and what that all means according to a government-appointed ethics committee. It takes really big brained people to worry about the “decapitation” . . . . Continue Reading »

Another university is paying Jack Kevorkian to speak, and once again the media—in this case the Miami Herald—can’t even report the basic facts about him correctly. From the story, byline Julie Levin: Dr. Jack Kevorkian will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Nova Southeastern . . . . Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago, I posted about bitter complaints being made by scientists in Brave New Britain that the government had not yet funded the creation of human/animal hybrid cloned embryos. The scientists charged that morality might have played a part in the non funding—a terrible thought that . . . . Continue Reading »

Gary Francione, who argues that to be authentic all animal rights believers must be vegan and lead by example (I agree with him on this), is unhappy. He worries that the animal rights movement is falling backwards because of the “humane meat” campaigns that, in his mind, have made carne . . . . Continue Reading »

This is the second post on the review of SHS in the current American Journal of Bioethics. We have already highlighted the positives that Yale University bioethicist found with SHS, and now I would like to reply to his criticisms. Latham writes:To be clear: This [human exceptionalism] is a . . . . Continue Reading »