Trump is Letting Scientists Play God

by Wesley J. Smith

Recent advances in human cloning, synthetic biology, and CRISPR technology pose grave ethical questions—yet our president seems uninterested.  Continue Reading »

22 Dec 2017

Time for a “Populist” Bioethics Commission

by Wesley J. Smith

Even chaotic debate (about cloning, gene therapy, and three-parent embryos) is preferable to our current, aimless drift. Continue Reading »

26 May 2017

Bioethics in 2017

by Wesley J. Smith

Here are five bioethical issues that have the potential to explode into controversy. Continue Reading »

6 Jan 2017

Brave New World Should Be an Election Issue

by Wesley J. Smith

With so much humanity-altering power being developed, where are the democratic debates about whether we should permit human beings to be designed, manufactured, and subjected to methods of quality control? Continue Reading »

5 Aug 2016

Stem Cells: Lines that Divide Available

by Wesley J. Smith

The Center for Bioethics and Culture is distributing the documentary Lines That Divide: The Great Embryonic Stem Cell Debate, about embryonic stem cell research.  From the film’s summary:First, the viewer is introduced to the basic science of stem cells and how they are gathered for . . . . Continue Reading »

9 Jun 2009

Another Assisted Suicide Slap on the Wrist Illustrates Need to Maintain Criminal Sanctions

by Wesley J. Smith

In Lodi, California, June Hartley helped her brother kill himself with helium and a bag.  She was charged with the felony of assisting suicide but is apparently going to get another in a series of slaps on the wrists of suicide assisters in such cases. From the story:A Lodi woman who helped her . . . . Continue Reading »

7 Jun 2009

Anti Humanism’s Threat to the Environmental Movement

by Wesley J. Smith

Environmentalism is changing.  It once was a distinctly humanistic movement, pushing conservation as a way of ensuring prosperity to our posterity, cleanup of pollution, protecting of habitats and endangered species, etc.—all certainly human duties arising from human exceptionalism. . . . . Continue Reading »

3 Jun 2009

Oklahoma Now Outlaws All Human Cloning

by Wesley J. Smith

A brief break from the euthanasia conference: I have just learned that the Governor of Oklahoma has signed the bill outlawing all human cloning in that state. Splendid. Not everyone is in thrall to Big Biotech and the purveyors of brave new . . . . Continue Reading »

29 May 2009

The Big Easy Shows Us How It’s Done

by Wesley J. Smith

By Jennifer LahlLouisiana just passed through their Senate committee, HR 370, which if passed, would ban the use of public funds for human cloning research. Hooray! Great model legislation moves forward without opposition and is headed to the Senate floor for a vote. Since its not being resisted, I . . . . Continue Reading »

23 May 2008

Scientists Claim to Have Created First Human Cloned Embryos

by Wesley J. Smith

A peer reviewed study claims to have created the first human cloned embryos, actually, the first cloned embryo. No stem cells derived. I warned readers that the iPSC breakthrough would redouble efforts among some scientists to successfully clone human embryos, and predicted that the derivation of . . . . Continue Reading »

17 Jan 2008