Neanderthals Cared for Down Syndrome Children
Too often, we abort themSuch compassion is on the outs in these “enlightened” days. Indeed, it may now be that more babies with Down syndrome are killed in the womb than are born.
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Wesley J. Smith
European Court: Assisted Suicide Not a Human Right
The high court also ruled that refusing life-sustaining treatment is not the same thing as suicideThe court did not rule — as Glucksberg did not about states — that countries cannot legalize assisted suicide or euthanasia.
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Don’t Believe in “International Community”? You’re Hardly Human!
Who said that? Not a streetcorner doomsday crank. No, it’s the editor of a highly respected medical journalIn reality, the public’s loss of “belief” is the natural consequence of the international system’s failing and betraying those it was designed to serve.
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Tobacco and Technocracy
Is tobacco just the first villain to be punished by a growing technocracy that seeks to limit freedom?I don’t smoke, but I am wary of efforts to prevent other people from so doing. Now, blue cities — and soon states, most likely — have hit upon a way to ban smoking known as “Tobacco Free Generation” (TFG). It’s Pretty Clever Allow people who can legally buy tobacco today to purchase it, but permanently outlaw the sale of tobacco products to people based on the date of their birth — even as they become adults — as described glowingly in the New England Journal of Medicine: The bylaw, passed by Brookline, Massachusetts, gradually phases out commercial tobacco by banning the sale of nicotine products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2000 (one of us cosponsored the bylaw). Read More ›
Harvard Law to Teach Rights of Nature
People think that such a whacky idea will never gain traction. But the nature-rights movement is making great headwayIf the law grants geological features, viruses, and pond scum “rights,” our economies and human exceptionalism will be the victims.
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Woke Gobbledygook Now Passes for Erudition in Medical Journals
When science publications run policy bafflegab about healthcare reform instead of statements of hard facts about it— however dense they may be — science is the big loserThis article is reprinted from National Review with the permission of the author. Our most august medical journals are in danger of becoming more woke ideological-advocacy publications than disseminators of learned scientific studies. This is particularly true of the New England Journal of Medicine, which regularly publishes progressive gibberish pushing “equity” that is often nearly impossible to understand. Here’s the latest example. From “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize — Focusing on Health Care Equity”: We believe that health care–centric goals — equity in patient experience and clinical outcomes — should be the primary equity-related targets for clinicians, health care administrators, health plans, and payers. The health care sector is best positioned to improve the effectiveness and equity of the care it Read More ›
Again with the ‘Plants Are Intelligent’ Nonsense
It seems to me that the ultimate point of these “plants are persons too”–type stories is to undermine human exceptionalismHuman uniqueness is essential to our duties to each other, our posterity, the humane treatment of animals, and proper husbanding of the environment.
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Bioethicists Want to Rule the World
Alright, the headline is a tad hyperbolic. But just a tad.It seems to me that the best approach to the policy opinions of mainstream bioethicists is to consider the source, shrug, and carry on.
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Utah Goes Up Against “Nature Rights”
Utah is the fourth state — the others are Ohio, Florida, and Idaho — restricting rights to the human realm where they belong.Indeed, it is our obligation as humans to benefit from the earth’s bounties in responsible ways. But nature rights would stifle our ability to thrive and shrivel the principle of human rights.
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Euthanasia is Not About Compassion
This movement will end up pressuring people to dieEuthanasia isn’t really about compassion but fear of decline and a loathing of dependency — and of those experiencing them. That nasty truth has become abundantly clear with a new column published in the Times of London in which former Tory MP Matthew Parris argues that euthanasia/assisted suicide should not only be permitted — but encouraged. In “We Can’t Afford a Taboo on Assisted Dying,” he writes (my emphasis): I can’t dispute the objectors’ belief that once assisted dying becomes normalized we will become more apt to ask yourselves for how much longer we can justify the struggle. An Unjustifiable Life The word “justify” is telling. It does not only concern the suffering of the person who is ill, disabled, or elderly but the suffering Read More ›
“The Right to Health” Isn’t as Good as It Sounds
Health and wellness are becoming technocracy's disguise.Health and wellness are becoming the primary justifications for international technocracy, or “rule by experts.” Indeed, we are told that preventing the next pandemic will require that the World Health Organization be given the power to declare pandemics and impose emergency policies internationally. Anthony Fauci went even further, arguing that that the UN and the WHO must be given greater powers to “rebuild the infrastructures of human existence.” Imagine the authoritarian potential. We have been told, also, that climate change is a health emergency that justifies greater technocratic control. So is racism. Ditto, gun proliferation in the U.S. And we can’t forget the threats to biodiversity. On and on the proposed policy imperialism goes. This is why the seemingly good-sounding proposal for an international “right to health” is such Read More ›
Stem Cells Might Cure HIV?
We must always be cautious about stories touting biotechnological curesWe must always be cautious about stories touting biotechnological cures. There is a lot of hype out there, but this seems genuine. An HIV/blood-cancer patient seems to have gone into permanent remission thanks to adult stem cells. From the Daily Mail story: A California man is on the cusp of being declared cured of HIV and blood cancer. Paul Edmonds, 68, who made international headlines last year when he shared his story, still has no traces of either condition five years after being given a transplant of cells that rid his body of both diseases. In a new article by the medical team who treated him, doctors said he was officially cured of cancer and two years away from being declared cured of HIV — when he will have gone Read More ›
Mainstream Publication Endorses Suicide
The Politico story violates media guidelines and does a profound disservice to our society.Such reporting tells people with dementia that their lives are not worth living. This is very wrong. Politico’s editors should be ashamed.
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Being a Good Scientist Doesn’t Mean Being an Effective Leader
Francis Collins admits that they botched the COVID-19 response.Collins’s recent admissions and overarching career illustrate why we should resist the current push to impose a regime of rule by experts.
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Medical Journal Crosses a Whole New Line
Is blaming commercialism for global warming genuine science? Or just ideology?The Lancet needs to go back to being a medical journal rather than a propaganda outlet for progressive politics.
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Euthanasia’s Slippery Slope
Once a society embraces death as the answer to suffering, what counts as suffering never stops expanding.Note well that the concept of the “completed life” need not involve any physical illness, disabling condition, or psychiatric malady at all.
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Assisted Suicide and the Dangers of “Word Engineering”
When radical policies are proposed, the first step is to change the lexicon to make it seem less extreme, even mundane.If people don’t kill themselves because of concern about stigma, isn’t that good? I mean, shouldn’t we want fewer people to commit suicide?
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The Anti-Human “Rights of Nature” Movement
Environmentalism is growing increasingly antii-human. Just look at what Milwaukee County did.Environmentalism is growing increasingly anti-human. The “nature rights” movement epitomizes the misanthropy. If the suppose rights of Nature (with a capital N) were ever enforced legally–human thriving would be throttled by elevating the entire natural world to quasi-personhood status deserving — at minimum — equal consideration with humans. Moreover, nature rights laws generally allow anyone to sue to enforce nature’s supposed rights, which would mean that human enterprise would be subject to lawfare by the most extreme environmentalists. Milwaukee County has jumped on the bandwagon. From a formal “Resolution Supporting the Nature Rights Movement:” WHEREAS, major bodies of water within Milwaukee County, including the Menominee River, Milwaukee River, and Fox River as well as Lake Michigan, provide essential biodiversity and wildlife habitats; andWHEREAS, these Read More ›
Should Animals Be Able to Vote? Some Animal Rights Activists Think So
Here's a taste of just how absurd and extreme "animal rights" has become.As I always say, if you want to see what is going so badly wrong in society, read the professional and intellectual journals.
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Humans Are More Important Than Pigs
Mainstream bioethics has long sought to deconstruct human exceptionalism by claiming that species membership is irrelevant to moral worth.The lives of human beings are unquantifiably more important than those of pigs.
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