Wesley J. Smith

This time, the Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez is co-sponsoring the bill to legalize assisted suicide in California. Oh well: The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Back to the battlements to defend decency and ethics in . . . . Continue Reading »

A study of British doctors found that some doctors admit they deem elderly people “less deserving” of optimal care. This is not unexpected. The signs have been there for years. From the story in the Telegraph:”Doctors in Britain regularly discriminate against older patients by . . . . Continue Reading »

The poignant letter reproduced below is from the mother of a woman who died donating eggs (for IVF). The death of Jacqueline belies the smug assertions being made by would-be human cloners and their advocates that women who donate eggs for biotechnology will face little danger. It is, of course, . . . . Continue Reading »

The assisted suicide fanatics are at it again in the UK, getting behind the lawsuit of a woman who wants to die. Apparently Kelly Taylor, a woman with a terribly painful heart and lung condition, is suing to be given what is sometimes called terminal sedation. It should be called palliative . . . . Continue Reading »

This story is unremarkable—in the sense that adult stem cell advances are so ubiquitous. Apparently human adult stem cells have rebuilt muscle tissue in mice, moving the technology toward potential treatment for muscular dystrophy. Not yet ready for human trials, apparently, but definitely . . . . Continue Reading »

Science is becoming so unscientific these days, akin in some minds to ideology—or even religion. Lest you doubt it, consider changes being contemplated by the new “pro science” Kansas Board of Education. In essence, members are planning to do to the less savory history of science, . . . . Continue Reading »

It looks as if we are beginning to enter an era of age discrimination in health care. As is usually the case in matters such as this, the perniciousness enters on the back of what may be deemed a reasonable thesis: In this case, people who will enjoy transplanted organs longer should have first . . . . Continue Reading »

The Wall Street Journal (no link available) reports that scientists are treating wounded Iraqi War veterans with a substance from pigs that seems to resurrect the ability to regenerate organs and other body parts—an ability possessed by fetuses but lost after birth. In this case, the . . . . Continue Reading »

In this Daily Standard column, David Klinghoffer, my colleague at the Discovery Institute, notes that it has been 100 years since eugenic sterilization was first legalized in the USA. He also points out that while Darwin opposed discriminating against the weak, the pernicious eugenics theory was . . . . Continue Reading »

60 Minutes had a horrendous story on tonight’s show of a mentally ill prisoner, in jail for shop lifting, who was chained to his bed for many hours each day and allowed to dehydrate to death by clearly negligent prison personnel. This is a shameful example of how we often abuse the mentally . . . . Continue Reading »