Wesley J. Smith

Some radical feminists have supported euthanasia as a women’s issue since the days of the Suffragettes. I comment on this in today’s First Things blog, which deals with a story out of the UK that was covered here at Secondhand Smoke a few weeks ago. (You may have to scroll . . . . Continue Reading »

I frequently criticize the media in this blog and in my other work because we need a vibrant and accurate 4th Estate for democracy to thrive. And that is precisely what we don’t have today in some of the most pressing cultural and moral issues of the day.Here’s just another small example . . . . Continue Reading »

Now the Wall Street Journal has reported that the ACT big stem cell breakthrough was nothing of the kind. There is no link, so here is an abridged version, with a few of my comments in bold:“Controversy continues to build over a claim that biotechnology researchers produced stem cells without . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert T. Miller’s entry about Jenni Murray’s suicide pact is indeed worth noticing, but primarily I think because of a point he does not explore. In addition to not wanting to be a burden, Murray groused about not wanting to be burdened by having to care for her aging parents. Publicity . . . . Continue Reading »

Ramesh Ponnuru’s book Party of Death is reviewed in today’s New York Times. The reviewer Jonathan Rauch, predictably, discounts the book, claiming that for people in the middle of the abortion debate, it doesn’t have much to say. I don’t agree with that opinion, as my own . . . . Continue Reading »

The computer age is amazing. I did an interview to Australia a few months ago, and this podcast is now available to anyone in the world who has on-line access. The issue is euthanasia and assisted suicide. Check it . . . . Continue Reading »

Last year, doctors wrote 12-year old Haleigh Poutre off as good as dead after she was beaten nearly to death, allegedly by her adoptive mother and step father. After only one week, they assumed she was in a PVS and urged the State of Massachusetts to dehydrate Haleigh to death. The State Supreme . . . . Continue Reading »

The New York Times mildly reported today about the fact that ACT did not create embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos. Lanza is in full dissembling mode, claiming that he had not read the Nature press release before it went out. For some reason, Nicolas Wade, the Times reporter, fails to . . . . Continue Reading »

Nat Hentoff is a friend of mine, and it is a great honor to be able to make that claim. For decades he has stood steadfastly for individual rights and civil liberties. When he writes about the sanctity and equality of human life, he has no peer—as in this reminder of the great wrong done to . . . . Continue Reading »

I seem to have stirred up some angry—I don’t know how to label them, nihilists? anarchists?—by claiming on my Starbuck’s coffee cup (“The Way I See It” campaign, scroll to Cup # 127) that the question of the 21st Century is whether all human life will be . . . . Continue Reading »