Wesley J. Smith

I received a sad e-mail today that Tom Marzen, Chief Counsel for the National Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, has died of lung cancer. Tom was a tireless advocate for the equal humanity and human rights of people with serious cognitive or developmental disabilities. By the time I . . . . Continue Reading »

Philip Nitschke, the “Down Under Kevorkian,” is running for political office (again). Apparently, like his American soul cousin, he can’t get enough publicity. Let’s see what his plank would be: Oh, yes: Suicide pills available for sale in super markets; assisted suicide for . . . . Continue Reading »

Doctors and a San Luis Obispo hospital are being accused in a lawsuit of mistreating Reuben Navarro, a disabled dying patient toward the end that he would die sooner rather than later and that his organs could then be be procured. (Click here for PDF of Complaint.) Based on what has either been . . . . Continue Reading »

Here is an interesting—and predictable—turn of events: Two nurses are being investigated by law enforcement for engaging in assisted suicide, although the facts look more like a euthanasia. From the story:Two Portland-area nurses gave [cancer patient Wendy Melcher] massive amounts of . . . . Continue Reading »

Get this story out of Euthanasia Land—a.k.a. the Netherlands: A physician has lost his medical license for attempting to treat his dying cancer patient with an alternative treatment. I am not for quackery, of course, and the physician may well deserve the harsh punishment. But this extreme . . . . Continue Reading »

Last week I posted here at SHS about an opinion column in the Hastings Center Report urging that assisted suicide be made available to some mentally ill people. I expound on that issue in greater length and detail in this piece published today in the Daily Standard. I conclude:With the truth now . . . . Continue Reading »

I have a piece up today over at First Things about the latest attack on human exceptionalism—animal ensoulment—published, no less, in the science pages of the New York Times. I review some of the areas in which human exceptionalism is under assault and describe the NYT story. Here are a . . . . Continue Reading »

And I don’t just say that because it was written by my wife, nationally syndicated San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Debra J. Saunders. The problem of animal rights terrorism is real and of growing concern. So far, no one has been murdered—not for lack of advocacy for such an event by . . . . Continue Reading »

What a pleasant surprise: An opinion column in the New England Journal of Medicine opposes medical futility. Written by Harvard Medical School professor Robert D. Troug, M.D., it makes some very good points about the problem with even the best-intended futile care policies. Reacting to the Baby . . . . Continue Reading »

Tearing humans off the pedestal of exceptionalism is all the rage today among academics, philosophers, and other assorted members of the intelligentsia. The war against unique human worth¯of which many remain unaware¯is being mounted on many fronts: • "Personhood Theory" in . . . . Continue Reading »