Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, and consults for the Patients Rights Council.
-
Wesley J. Smith
I sometimes despair how hard it seems to be for so many people to “get” why attempts to depersonalize some humans as we personalize nature are so harmful. But it is, and unless current trends are reversed, it will get increasingly worse.Take the recent declaration of individual . . . . Continue Reading »
Secondhand Smokette was on CNN’s Reliable Sources yesterday, and she brought up a point in the Ayers/Obama controversy—the particulars of which are not relevant here—that was worth the price of tuning in. When Howard Kurtz asked her to justify her remark that a NYT story on the . . . . Continue Reading »
Global Warming "Refugees in the Antarctica!" Why Nobody Believes Anything Anymore
From First ThoughtsI have remarked previously that too often, scientific studies are actually ideological advocacy tracts in disguise. Or, a scientific study is misreported without the nuance contained therein by media toward the same purpose and effect. Or, a study one day says A and the next day on the same topic . . . . Continue Reading »
If only it were this simple and of such little . . . . Continue Reading »
If Montana Anti-Assisted Suicide Law is Unconstitutional, What Difference Does Terminal Illness Make?
From First ThoughtsThis is all so phony: Compassion and Choices (formerly Hemlock Society) has filed a suit to declare Montana’s law prohibiting assisted suicide to be unconstitutional as against Montana’s right to privacy. The suit seeks to declare that a terminally ill person has a right to assistance . . . . Continue Reading »
It is still less than a year since the first human IPSCs were derived. One of its supposed downsides as a technique was the need to use retro viruses to effectuate the change from differentiated cell (e.g., skin, or other type of body cell) into pluritpotent stem cell. The fear was this could lead . . . . Continue Reading »
The assisted suicide movement has done much to sow fear and confusion about palliative sedation, sometimes referring to this proper palliative practice as “terminal sedation,” as if the intent is to kill rather than ease suffering. A new study, however, belies this notion. Having . . . . Continue Reading »
The Swiss have overtaken the Dutch as the prime harbingers of things to come in the Culture of Death. As it grants individual intrinsic dignity to plants, its Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill. Now, a debate is opening, the end point of which is . . . . Continue Reading »
I am restarting the poll I posted earlier because commenters complained, and properly, that I had not done a good enough job creating choices. So, I have added two excellent suggestions. One more time! What is the most important purpose of society? ( . . . . Continue Reading »
Pro I-1000 Blog Captures the Abandoning Ethic of Assisted Suicide with Vile Use of V-Word
From First ThoughtsI cannot respond to every blog entry or story about assisted suicide that is filled with deplorable sentiments or outright lies, not to mention anti-religious bigotry. They are just too ubiquitous!But this one requires comment because it applies the “V-word” like a bludgeon in the title . . . . Continue Reading »
influential
journal of
religion and
public life Subscribe Latest Issue Support First Things