Wesley J. Smith

This story out of the UK is of concern. Cloned animals are having, shall we say, troubles. No surprise there. Consequently, cloners are keeping some of them penned in and causing stress, leading to aggression, particlularly among cloned pigs. Their reported solution? Get rid of the stress and . . . . Continue Reading »

There has been tremendous interest in the media about Ashley and the decision by her parents to keep her small. Here is a radio interview I did today on The Eagle, KSSZ from Columbia, MO. The host is Derek . . . . Continue Reading »

My wonderful and dear friend, Mark Pickup, has started a blog called Human Life Matters. I met Mark circa 1996 when we both appeared at an anti-euthanasia conference sponsored by the Compassionate Healthcare Network in Vancouver. We hit it off immediately and became the best of friends. I dedicated . . . . Continue Reading »

A coroner’s inquest has determined that the elderly woman in the UK, whom some family members claimed was denied sustenance, died of natural causes. She was not provided a feeding tube, based on what seems to be very vague indications by the patient. Hence, it seems that the care of the . . . . Continue Reading »

I mean this only half facetiously: Apparently there has been another cloning scandal, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (no link available). An unpublished study had claimed to have obtain embryonic stem cells from cloned monkey embryos. Not so, apparently: “An investigation by . . . . Continue Reading »

Yuval Levin, the former White House policy guy for biotechnology, and now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center (which former Senator Rick Santorum just joined), has a fine piece in today’s NRO that bursts the bubble, in an entirely empirical manner, of many of the most prominent arguments . . . . Continue Reading »

The disability rights movement is really up in arms about the non therapeutic surgeries imposed upon Ashley. Not Dead Yet has weighed in with its own press release (released on the 6th but only linkable now). Here are a few key points:“‘We are saddened but not surprised by the fact that . . . . Continue Reading »

I am often asked how and why I became an activist on behalf of human exceptionalism. I sure never planned it! Nor, when I began this work, was I aware of the depth and scope of the issues in which I would one day engage. My path to posting this blog entry began with the suicide of my friend, . . . . Continue Reading »

The never shy Steven Drake has blistered the doctors who performed the surgery on Ashley in an open letter. Here is what he wrote in full:“I am writing to you wearing several hats.My first hat is as a person with a disability related to injuries received at birth. The doctor who inflicted . . . . Continue Reading »

People rightly ridiculed then Senator John Edwards when he claimed that if people voted for Senator John Kerry, “people like [the paralyzed] Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.” This was rightly criticized as the “Amen Moment,” . . . . Continue Reading »