Wesley J. Smith

I heard from FNC today about my “The Silent Scream of the Asparagus” Weekly Standard column. I am schedule to be interviewed tomorrow at 6:45 AM Pacific (yawn) . . . . Continue Reading »

SHS readers will recall my piece in the Weekly Standard about the Swiss creating “dignity” for plants. I am sure the creators of this parody (Arrogant Worms—Carrot Juice is Murder”) never thought their satire would be overtaken by actual . . . . Continue Reading »

When assisted suicide advocates try to sell the public on assisted suicide, they usually describe an eminently dying patient whose suffering cannot be palliated. But once it passes, we soon see that assisted suicide is used by people who have serious fears and concerns, but not untreatable pain.This . . . . Continue Reading »

Doctors and bioethicists have been mulling how to triage care if the deep ecologists receive the deepest yearning of their hearts and the human race is stricken with a deadly pandemic. In such a case, priorities of care will have to be set, but there is cause for worry that the latest report . . . . Continue Reading »

Why the transhumanist technological breakthrough—known as the “singularity”—will never come:Lio proves there may be something to genetic . . . . Continue Reading »

I don’t like to comment about issues involving individual family matters, but this is an exception: Alaska Governor Sara Palin and her husband have welcomed a new baby with Down syndrome into the world. From the story:The doctor’s announcement in December, when Palin was four months . . . . Continue Reading »

Back during the Clinton Administration, federal bureaucrats launched a devastating assault on hospice—called “Operation Restore Trust”—in which the Feds presumed that a patient who did not die within 6 months of entering hospice was there fraudulently, and as a consequence, . . . . Continue Reading »

As promised, I have written a longer piece Switzerland embodying the “dignity” of plants into its constitution in a published in this week’s Weekly Standard (subscription may be required). First, I recount the story and the ethics committee’s report, as I did here at SHS . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, this is long overdue. Congress overwhelmingly passed, and the president will sign, a bill outlawing genetic discrimination in employment and insurance. From the story:The bill passed with overwhelming support in the House on a 414-1 vote, a week after being approved by a 95-0 vote in the . . . . Continue Reading »

The power of the IPSCs is becoming so evident that, like Ian Wilmut before them, many scientists are joining the field. From a story in Nature Reports Stem Cells: The fact that making iPS cells does not pose the technical and ethical challenges of working with eggs or embryos is drawing large . . . . Continue Reading »