Wesley J. Smith

Kathryn Tucker, the lawyer for Compassion and Choices (formerly Hemlock Society) and I will debate assisted suicide (which she insists on calling “aid in dying”) Tuesday night at the Holocaust Museum of Houston. Our presentations are part of a much larger series entitled “Medical . . . . Continue Reading »

60 Minutes and Anderson Cooper did a good job tonight on the hope that now clearly exists for at least some patients in a minimally conscious state. The show focused on the Ambien awakenings, which we have discussed here many times at SHS and in my articles. I was also pleased to note that Anderson . . . . Continue Reading »

The Canadian television show, “The Verdict” which featured my good friend, Mark Pickup in the third segment, is so typical of the pro assisted suicide public affairs media explorations of the issue. First, notice how the question is posed:Are Canadian laws robbing people of the right to . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times has a humongous but very disappointing editorial in today’s paper about the various issues we will have to address as a nation to keep health care costs down. Unfortunately, the editorialist ignores the big issues and manages to use a lot of words to say very little. First, . . . . Continue Reading »

Animal liberationists are ever about the task of impeding any and all uses of animals for any human purpose. One target here and abroad is entertainment, particularly circuses, based on the claim that circuses abuse their animals. This is a dubious assertion, given that healthy animals are needed . . . . Continue Reading »

California is once again sinking into the quicksand of red ink. Latest estimates show that the state must cut its budget by $10 billion! This will come out of the hides of university students, poor people needing health care, and other areas of urgent state concern.But “the scientists” . . . . Continue Reading »

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson has a very good column in today’s paper about the recent stem cell breakthrough. After giving President Bush due credit for the part his policy played in the recent development, and recounting some of the past debate, he suggests that the pro-ESCR/human . . . . Continue Reading »

A new Texas Supreme Court decision validates a Lone Star State law that treats the killing of unborn life—other than in the abortion context—as potentially murder. From the story:Texas laws allow the killing of a fetus to be prosecuted as murder, regardless of the fetus’ stage of . . . . Continue Reading »

As we celebrate the creation and potential of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, adult stem cell research continues to bear fruit in animal and human studies. The latest is a truly exciting find out of Stanford University: Blood stem cells taken from a donor with a healthy immune system effectively . . . . Continue Reading »

My pal Joseph Bottum over at First Things had a piece on the FT blog the other day (that I partially quoted previously), concerning the great breakthrough. But his analysis ranged beyond the apparent capability now to obtain ethical pluripotent stem cells. He suggests that the wild media bias on . . . . Continue Reading »