Wesley J. Smith

Expounding further on a theme I began yesterday: Western culture is profoundly—and I think on several important bioethical issues. implacably—split about what is right and what is wrong. These issues range from abortion, to euthanasia, to embryonic stem cell research, to removing feeding . . . . Continue Reading »

The case of M.B., the 12-year-old boy whose Orthodox Jewish parents sought to have his life support continued after he was declared dead by neurological criteria, is over. From the story: The boy had already been declared brain dead, but some adherents of Jewish religious law say death occurs only . . . . Continue Reading »

The abandoning ethic of assisted suicide is demonstrated by studies showing depression in many patients requesting hastened death. This point is commented upon in a letter to the editor in the British Medical Journal by Thomas Koch, a Canadian professor at the University of British Columbia. There . . . . Continue Reading »

There was a column in yesterday’s SF Chronicle that dealt with the mortgage crisis. That issue is way beyond our scope here, but one point made by the writer hit my SHS nerve endings. From the column, “Are You an Idiot to Keep Paying Your Mortgage?”:But what about the moral . . . . Continue Reading »

China is a true tyranny. And now, it has ordered a Muslim woman to abort her viable fetus or face the loss of her home. From the story: Chinese authorities have ordered Arzigul Tursun, who is 26 weeks pregnant, to abort her unborn child because she has two other children. She is under watch at the . . . . Continue Reading »

I have a piece in the current Weekly Standard about Ecuador granting “rights” to nature. (I wrote this several weeks ago, but for obvious reasons having to do with all of the political news lately, it was delayed until now.) From my column:Rights, properly understood, are moral . . . . Continue Reading »

It wasn’t easy, a thicket of opposition, sometimes very threatening, from animal rights activists, impeded progress, but the new Oxford animal research center has finally opened. From the story on BBC:Four years ago, Cambridge University cancelled plans for a primate research centre, because . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a terrible mental illness called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), aka “amputee wannabe” because the sufferer becomes obsessed with having healthy limbs cut off. I have written before that some are actually arguing that a proper treatment for the disorder would be to cut . . . . Continue Reading »

Barbara Walters joins People and Oprah Winfry before her (three of our most destructive cultural wrecking balls) in cooing over Thomas Beatie, the “man” who gave birth. Why is he back in the news? Well, apparently Beatie is pregnant again, and despite early on having claimed to be . . . . Continue Reading »

Just because assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and Washington-State, that does make it right. The time has come for a very public and vibrant declaration of non cooperation with the culture of death.Toward that end, a new campaign to “Take the Pledge” against assisted suicide has . . . . Continue Reading »