SHS readers will recall my piece in the Weekly Standard about the Swiss creating “dignity” for plants. I am sure the creators of this parody (Arrogant Worms—Carrot Juice is Murder”) never thought their satire would be overtaken by actual . . . . Continue Reading »
When assisted suicide advocates try to sell the public on assisted suicide, they usually describe an eminently dying patient whose suffering cannot be palliated. But once it passes, we soon see that assisted suicide is used by people who have serious fears and concerns, but not untreatable pain.This . . . . Continue Reading »
I’d heard that someone had written a children’s story about the pope’s life as told from a cat’s perspective. I thought it was a novel idea, and when a publicist asked if I’d like a copy, I said I’d take a look. Joseph and Chico is by an Italian journalist living . . . . Continue Reading »
Doctors and bioethicists have been mulling how to triage care if the deep ecologists receive the deepest yearning of their hearts and the human race is stricken with a deadly pandemic. In such a case, priorities of care will have to be set, but there is cause for worry that the latest report . . . . Continue Reading »
Why the transhumanist technological breakthrough—known as the “singularity”—will never come:Lio proves there may be something to genetic . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t like to comment about issues involving individual family matters, but this is an exception: Alaska Governor Sara Palin and her husband have welcomed a new baby with Down syndrome into the world. From the story:The doctor’s announcement in December, when Palin was four months . . . . Continue Reading »
Back during the Clinton Administration, federal bureaucrats launched a devastating assault on hospice—called “Operation Restore Trust”—in which the Feds presumed that a patient who did not die within 6 months of entering hospice was there fraudulently, and as a consequence, . . . . Continue Reading »
Father Gordon MacRae, a priest of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, has been in prison for more than twelve years, convicted of a sex-abuse crime that he insists he did not commit. He is sentenced to thirty-three years, and his claim of innocence precludes his being considered for parole. . . . . Continue Reading »
As promised, I have written a longer piece Switzerland embodying the “dignity” of plants into its constitution in a published in this week’s Weekly Standard (subscription may be required). First, I recount the story and the ethics committee’s report, as I did here at SHS . . . . Continue Reading »
A recent report in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz quotes Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone to the effect that the Church might remove a prayer for the conversion of the Jews from the newly revived Latin liturgy for Easter. Many Jewish religious authorities rankle at the prayer, which caused some static . . . . Continue Reading »