Wesley J. Smith Articles
Pondering Harambe
Do we really care more about animals than about people?
Jun 27, 2016
The killing of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo last month was an unfortunate necessity, a lethal act required to save the life of an imminently endangered child. But listening to the public outpouring of grief and outrage—stoked by the media—one would think that the shooting of the animal was a heinous crime. We saw the same kind of outrage when an American killed Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe last year. Unlike Harambe's, Cecil's death was anything but a necessity—he was lured out of a sa Read more
The End-of-Life Bureaucracy
Medicare and advance directives.
Dec 07, 2015
The federal technocracy, like the old B-horror-movie monster The Blob , grows by sucking all surrounding life into its amoeba-like digestive system. There are never enough bureaucratic controls or government programs to “incentivize” us—in the jargon—to behave in ways the technocrats think best. That is why we should look with a jaundiced eye at new legislation that would pay Medicare beneficiaries for preparing an advance medical directive. The Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act is Read more
Medicare and Medical Futility
Who decides to discontinue treatment?
Nov 16, 2015
The media are cooing over the news that Medicare will reimburse doctors $86 for half-hour consultations about the kind of treatment patients would—or would not—want should they become incapacitated. Such coverage was slated to be part of Obamacare, but was dropped after it became controversial when Sarah Palin warned against “death panels.” Now, six years later, Medicare’s coverage of these important conversations (and private insurers are sure to follow) has brought nary a peep of protest. Nor Read more
Our Utilitarian Medical Elite
Bioethics and Planned Parenthood.
Sep 21, 2015
Jeffrey Drazen, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine , recently penned a scathing editorial about Planned Parenthood’s harvesting of fetal tissues. No, Drazen and his two coauthors (one a volunteer for Planned Parenthood) didn’t criticize the abortionists for killing fetuses in a “less crunchy manner” to obtain intact organs. Rather, deploying the highly emotive language of ideological pro-abortion activism, the doctor-advocates attacked the messengers as “radical anti-choice” and s Read more
Dangerous Apathy
Barbarism in our time.
Aug 10, 2015
The country has been roiled in recent weeks by videos showing two Planned Parenthood executives chirpily telling pro-life undercover investigators that fetal organs could be had for a price. The executives—both themselves abortionists—explained that their techniques could be adapted to “crush” fetuses in a “less crunchy” manner so as to better insure harvests suitable for research. There have, of course, been previous scandals involving the selling of aborted fetal body parts, complete with pric Read more
Follow the Money
Oregon makes assisted suicide a public priority.
Jun 29, 2015
The United States is slowly becoming pro-suicide. No, not all suicides. No one favors troubled teens or healthy adults killing themselves. But our society can no longer be described as unequivocally antisuicide. Look at the celebration of the late Brittany Maynard, who received the full celebrity treatment—including being named by CNN as one of the most extraordinary people of 2014— because she committed suicide after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Indeed, the emotionalism genera Read more
Euthanasia Comes to Canada
Are we next?
Feb 23, 2015
This month, the Canadian Supreme Court trampled democratic deliberation by unanimously conjuring a constitutional right to “termination of life” for anyone who has an “irremediable medical condition” and wants to die. Note the scope of the judicial fiat is not limited to the terminally ill: The ruling grants competent adults a right to die if they have an “illness, disease, or disability that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual,” including “psychological” pain. Even t Read more
The Schiavo Case Revisited
Why you may be hearing about it in 2016.
Jan 05, 2015
Now that Republican Jeb Bush has made all the noises of a man running for president, expect the former governor of Florida to be attacked for trying to save the life of Terri Schiavo. The first such criticisms have already been launched in the left-wing media. ThinkProgress quoted Terri’s widower Michael—who had two children with his now-wife while still married to Terri—warning: “If you want a government that’s gonna intrude on your life, enforce their personal views on you, then I guess Jeb Bu Read more
Kevorkian’s Vision
He’s looking alarmingly prophetic.
Dec 15, 2014
Assisted suicide exploded into the news again two months ago after Brittany Maynard, dying of brain cancer, announced she would take a lethal prescription as permitted under Oregon law. Maynard became an international celebrity, lauded as “courageous” in a cover story in People and featured in the world’s top media outlets. The last time the media swarmed so feverishly in favor of assisted suicide was when they touted Jack Kevorkian’s defiant assisted suicide campaign in the 1990s. As they later Read more
Cruel and Unusual
Death with Dignity Executions meet euthanasia.
Oct 27, 2014
Belgium is on the verge of executing its first murderer by lethal injection. Well, not exactly “executing.” The state isn’t going to kill convicted murderer/rapist Frank Van Den Bleeken for his crimes. Rather, it is helping him be euthanized. By a doctor. At a hospital. To which he was transferred after a court ruled that Den Bleeken’s request to end the suffering caused by his imprisonment (he has served 30 years of a life sentence) and continuing violent sexual urges fits snugly within that co Read more
The Ethics of Food and Drink
Starvation is not mercy.
Jul 28, 2014
Should the law compel nursing homes to starve certain Alzheimer’s patients to death? This is not an alarmist fantasy, but a real question, soon to be forced by advocates of ever-wider application of assisted euthanasia. The intellectual groundwork is already being laid for legislation or court orders requiring nursing homes, hospitals, and other facilities to withhold spoon feeding from dementia patients who, though they take food and drink willingly, once requested the withholding of life-prolo Read more
The Paper of the Apes
The New York Times ’s animal-rights crusade.
May 26, 2014
That the New York Times is a subversive cultural force can readily be seen in its unremitting assault on human exceptionalism, the philosophical backbone of Western civilization. In the old view, every human being has intrinsic dignity and equal moral worth. The United Nations’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in Read more
The Suicide Juggernaut
Euthanasia activists are on a roll.
Dec 30, 2013
Advocates of assisted suicide tell two—no, three—lies that act as the honey to help the hemlock go down. The first is that assisted suicide/euthanasia is a strictly medical act. Second, they falsely assure us that medicalized killing is only for the terminally ill. Finally, they promise that strict guidelines will be rigorously enforced to protect against abuse. Recent legislative proposals and developments in the field demonstrate the mendacity of these assurances. For example, a new bill table Read more
Habeas Chimpanzee
The nonhuman rights campaign.
Dec 16, 2013
"Tommy” and other chimpanzees are the subjects of several lawsuits in New York seeking writs of habeas corpus and “immediate release from illegal detention.” These lawsuits, the doing of the Nonhuman Rights Project, are not a surprise. As already noted in these pages (“Animal Desires,” April 9, 2012), NRP volunteer lawyers have spent years researching the common law of states, looking for legal precedents that can be twisted to support declaring intelligent animals such as chimps and dolphins to Read more
Bureaucracy Lives!
How many experts does it take to advise a dying patient?
Aug 26, 2013
Back when the mess that is Obamacare was working its way through the legislative sausage factory, warnings about “death panels” almost derailed the entire enterprise. There were two, somewhat related, areas of concern: (1) that Obamacare’s many cost/benefit bureaucratic boards would lead to explicit health care rationing; and (2) that doctors paid to “counsel” elderly and dying patients about end-of-life treatment would actually pressure them to refuse expensive treatments. Owing to the lack of Read more
The Arrival of Human Cloning
It’s here. Don’t get used to it.
May 27, 2013
Human cloning is finally here, and it is going to spark a political conflagration. First, some background. The cloning era began when Dolly the sheep was manufactured in 1996. Dolly was cloned via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This is accomplished by removing the nucleus from a skin or other cell (in Dolly’s case, a mammary gland cell, hence her naming after Dolly Parton). That nucleus is then inserted into an egg whose nucleus has been removed. The engineered egg is stimulated, and if t Read more
Eggs for Sale?
Brace yourself for the human embryo market.
May 20, 2013
If you want to know what’s going to go wrong in the culture, read the professional journals. A case in point: An article in the April 10 New England Journal of Medicine called for the creation of a commodities market for “made-to-order” human embryos. The authors, I. Glenn Cohen and Eli Y. Adashi—university professors, of course—treat embryos as the equivalent of a prize cattle herd. They note that sperm and eggs are already bought and sold for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and, further, that New Read more
Health Costs Will Never Be Contained
When antidiscrimination law meets infertility treatment mandates.
Apr 15, 2013
Should health insurers be legally required to offer infertility treatment for gay couples? Yes, according to a bill (AB 460) filed in the California legislature by assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). In fact, refusing to do so should be a crime. Current California law requires group health plans to offer coverage for infertility treatments with the exception of in vitro fertilization (IVF). If such coverage is purchased, benefits must be paid whenever “a demonstrated condition recognized Read more
Not a Real Olive Branch
Obama’s phony compromise on contraception.
Feb 18, 2013
The Obama administration pulled another fast one last week, announcing its much-anticipated “compromise” on the free-birth-control rule as it affects religious employers opposed to contraception. There was hope in some quarters that the administration would back off its narrow religious exemption. Alas, a careful reading of the proposed rule shows that instead of offering a true modus vivendi, the administration launched a stealth power grab. Not only does the “compromise” maintain the previous Read more
What About Religious Freedom?
The other consequences of Obamacare.
Oct 29, 2012
Obamacare won’t just ruin health care. It is also a cultural bulldozer. Before the law is even fully in effect, Health and Human Services bureaucrats have begun wielding their sweeping new powers to assault freedom of religion in the name of their preferred social order. The promulgation of the free birth control rule indicates the regulatory road ahead. The government now requires every covered employer to provide health insurance that offers birth control and sterilization surgeries free of ch Read more
A Religious Freedom Election
A court case in Colorado shows what’s at stake this fall.
Aug 13, 2012
A recent federal trial court ruling has warmed the hearts of social conservatives and civil libertarians alike. A judge in Colorado on July 27 protected a Catholic-owned small business against the “free birth control rule”—which requires companies subject to the Affordable Care Act to offer their employees free contraception, sterilization, and other “preventive” services. The free birth control rule does not yet apply to religious institutions. Houses of worship with faith objections are exempt Read more
Get Happy!
Something new to worry about.
May 07, 2012
Is there no end to the technocratic impulse? Just when you thought that our government overlords couldn’t find any new way to intrude into our lives, they hatch a plan to multiply bureaucrats. Now cooking on the Obama stove: criteria to measure our “happiness.” Happiness? What business is that of the government’s? None. But when has that stopped the Obama administration? The Washington Post reported that Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services is funding a gaggle of “experts” to “define Read more
Animal Desires
Coming soon to a courtroom near you?
Apr 09, 2012
When People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sought a court ruling declaring SeaWorld’s killer whales “slaves” under the 13th Amendment, the nation got a badly needed chuckle. PETA argued that because the amendment doesn’t specify that its terms apply only to human beings—“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States”—then captive whales can be slaves too. The case— Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises, five orcas et al. v. SeaWorld —was Read more
All the News That’s Fit to Forget
Why you’re not hearing much about embryonic stem cells these days.
Nov 28, 2011
For years, the media touted the promise of embryonic stem cells. Year after year, Geron Corporation announced that its embryonic stem cell treatment for acute spinal cord injury would receive FDA approval “next year” for human testing. And year after year, the media dutifully informed readers and viewers that cures were imminent. When the FDA finally did approve a tiny human trial for 10 patients in January 2009, the news exploded around the world. This was it: The era of embryonic stem cell the Read more
The New Global Warming?
Here’s an issue governments can get fat on.
Sep 19, 2011
Obesity is the new global warming, and the battle plan for the crusade against it was published in the August issue of the journal Lancet . Funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and coauthored by nine Ph.D.s, the document is entitled “Changing the Future of Obesity: Science, Policy, and Action.” Its appearance was timed to coincide with the September “High-level Meeting of the U.N. General Read more
At the Bottom of the Slippery Slope
Where euthanasia meets organ harvesting.
Jul 04, 2011
In 1992, my friend Frances committed suicide on her 76th birthday. Frances was not terminally ill. She had been diagnosed with treatable leukemia and needed a hip replacement. Mostly, though, she was depressed by family issues and profoundly disappointed at where her life had taken her. Something seemed very off to me about Frances’s suicide. So I asked the executor of her estate to send me the “suicide file” kept by the quintessentially organized Frances and was horrified to learn from it that Read more
About Those Death Panels . . .
The very real threat of government health care rationing.
Jan 31, 2011
When Sarah Palin warned that Obamacare could lead to medical rationing and “death panels,” supporters were outraged. Alarmism! they roared. A lie! Right-wing propaganda! Alas for supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Palin’s provocative sound bite was at least partly grounded in reality—which is why the term entered the political lexicon. Now, however, some are seeking to wield the term against conservatives. Case in point: The Arizona legislature recently cut its Medicai Read more
Our New Obamacare Masters
Meet the Independent Payment Advisory Board.
Nov 29, 2010
The day after the Obama administration’s shellacking at the polls, Peter Orszag, former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, defended Obamacare from the ramparts of the New York Times . Dubiously asserting that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a money saver, Orszag extolled the establishment of an arcane new commission to oversee the Medicare budget: Perhaps most important, the legislation creates an Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of independ Read more
Ecocide: a Crime Against Peace?
Just when you thought the environmental movement couldn’t get worse.
May 10, 2010
Environmentalism is growing increasingly antihuman. Having left Teddy Roosevelt-style conservation and Earth Day consciousness-raising behind, the cutting edge of the movement is pursuing utopian “save the planet” agendas while angrily castigating mankind for supposedly sucking the life out of Gaia. Such environmental misanthropy used to be confined to the fringe. For more than three decades proponents of Deep Ecology have urged “environmental egalitarianism” and radical depopulation to beat bac Read more
