Wesley J. Smith

I received an e-mail from Lenore Dixon, Andrea Clark’s sister. Readers of Secondhand Smoke will recall that Clark was the woman who was the subject of a fight over the attempt to terminate wanted life-sustaining treatment. Her family was treated disgracefully. Now, they are working to fight . . . . Continue Reading »

As promised, I have now read “Attenuating Growth in Children with Profound Developmental Disability” in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (2006;160:1013-1017), written by the doctors who kept Ashley a “pillow angel.” (HT Susan Nunes)It is very disturbing. . . . . Continue Reading »

Animal liberation radicals, calling themselves WAR (Win Animal Rights), have declared “war” against Wall Street because the New York Stock Exchange listed Huntingdon Life Sciences on the Big Board. Radical liberationists have vowed to put HLS out of business because it conducts animal . . . . Continue Reading »

This was expected: Arizona legislators will introduce an assisted suicide legalization bill. Typically, the media report states that the opponents will be Christians and Catholics. That’s just the tip of the ice berg with disability rights and civil rights organizations also opposing, along . . . . Continue Reading »

The quest for the blank check to conduct human embryonic stem cell research continues apace, as states trip over each other to throw money at Big Biotech and its business partners in universities. Now, it’s New York, where the new governor wants the state’s taxpayers to shoulder a $2 . . . . Continue Reading »

The inestimable Will Saletan explores “the embryo factory” in Slate and, as is his wont, hits the nail on the head. He is writing about the Abraham Center of Life, which I commented about here at Secondhand Smoke last year. He writes that Jennalee Ryan, the entrepreneurial owner of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Doctors are planning to perform the first uterus transplant in a woman desiring the surgery so she can have a baby, not to save her life. This strikes me as moving onto dangerous ground where doctors reduce themselves from professionals into technicians. Medical professionals have responsibilities, . . . . Continue Reading »

Have you noticed how bitter some advocates for ESCR seem to be about the ongoing and ubiquitous advances in adult stem cell research? Well, here’s another story to raise their dander: Catherine Verfaillie, who first demonstrated that a certain type of bone marrow stem cell is multi-potent and . . . . Continue Reading »

George Dvorsky, the radical transhumanist—well, now there’s a redundant phrase—has come up with a long list of terms of which “intellectuals” should be aware. These include:”Cosmological Eschatology (aka physical eschatology): CE is the study of how the Universe . . . . Continue Reading »

Thanks to China’s one child policy, mixed with what I consider to be a eugenics mindset that sees boys as more valuable than girls—certainly based in part on cultural issues and the perceived need of parents to be cared for in old age—there will soon be 30 million more men of . . . . Continue Reading »