Archive

The other week, I discussed a Nature editorial advocating that scientists be required to “register” with the state. That policy, if enacted, would be a step toward establishing a technocratic rule-by-experts system by controlling what would be acceptable scientific discourse and who would be authorized to communicate about such matters. A new proposal, also in Nature, would push the West toward technocracy. The science journal just published a piece urging the U.N. to establish a panel of scientists — the International Panel on Inequality (IPI) — to determine policies involving income and wealth inequality. From “Why We Need an International Panel on Inequality:” The consequences [of wealth disparities] are well established. A growing body of research links higher income inequality Read More ›

On World Suicide Prevention Day, Wesley J. Smith appeared on In the Market with Janet Parshall to speak about the hypocrisy of suicide prevention organizations ignoring assisted suicide. Smith explained that these organizations only want to help prevent some suicides and that they “want to facilitate and endorse and help with others.” Read, “World Suicide Prevention Day” Hypocrisy

You may not have heard, but today is the annual World Suicide Prevention Day. Usually, such efforts are almost invisible. We don’t put nearly as much emphasis on suicide prevention as we once did. I am all for suicide prevention, of course. I just wish that those efforts included assisted suicide/euthanasia, which costs the lives of approximately 25,000 people annually around the world — with that toll increasing every year. But despite proliferating laws allowing doctors and nurse practitioners to assisted suicides — or, as in Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, and other countries — actively kill suicidal people, prevention efforts are generally silent about this category of suicide. I checked on the World Health Organization link to Prevention Day Read More ›

On World Suicide Prevention Day, Wesley J. Smith appeared on The Drew Mariani Show to discuss the double standard in many professional organizations that treat suicide in some cases as requiring prevention and in others as requiring assistance (i.e., assisted suicide and euthanasia). Smith recounts how this culture of death has marched through the West. Smith also addresses listener questions and expresses why it is vital that all suicidal ideations be treated with prevention, including those with terminal illnesses. “There’s a deep Nihilism in the West, a deep decadence in the West that we have to get a handle on because it’s dangerous and it causes people to look at suicide in a different way,” says Smith. Read, “‘World Suicide Read More ›

My mother died of Alzheimer’s disease at the ripe old age of 99. With invaluable help from hospice, my wife and I cared for her in our home for the last five months of her life.

Was it difficult? Very. Does that matter? No. Mom deserved the best care available regardless of her mental incapacity.

My mother’s brother also died of Alzheimer’s. He received excellent care in the memory unit of a Baptist-affiliated assisted living facility for the last years of his life.

Was it difficult? Very. Does that matter? No. My uncle deserved the best care available regardless of his mental incapacity.

The compassionate support my mother and uncle received was once the expected moral standard. Unfortunately, that seems to be changing. Increasingly, dementia patients are viewed by many as better off dead sooner rather than later.

JAMA Pediatrics has published a depressing study that shows that girls ages 10–14 have caught up with boys of that age when it comes to suicide rates: In 2017, the suicide rate of 10-to-14-year-old boys was twice that of girls (male-female ratio=1.98). By 2024, however, the suicide rate among boys was only 4% higher than that among girls in this age group (ratio=1.04). Gender disparities in suicide trends since 2018 appear to be responsible for the narrowing gap, as the suicide rate for boys decreased by 35% from 2018 to 2024 while the suicide rate for girls increased 13%. From 2007 to 2024, the suicide rate for 10-to 14-year-old girls [per 100,000] more than quadrupled (from 0.51 to 2.28) while the suicide rate Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith spoke with Todd Wilkens on the Issues, Etc. radio program on September 8, 2026, to discuss the latest proposal in Nature to require scientists to register with the government. Smith spoke about the danger this poses to free inquiry and the scientific method. “But what you see instead now too often in science is a suppression of different opinions because many in science have confused scientific policy and ideology with the scientific method,” Smith explained. “So some in science have moved from science to scientism where it becomes a form of belief as opposed to a method.” Smith and Wilkens also discuss recent developments in assisted suicide, including the money being made from it and the way Read More ›

The New York Times published an unbelievably puffy piece about a new assisted-suicide clinic starting in New York as legalization kicks in, describing it oh, so objectively as “a start-up for better deaths” — complete with Buddhist chanting. Good grief.

But the saccharine story raises an important issue discussed too little in the debate over assisted suicide. Legalization creates acute financial conflicts of interest that have the potential to push suicidal people toward death.

For socialized systems and government funded health care, killing instead of caring for expensive patients can save a lot of money over time, particularly when the terminal-illness limitation is lifted. Indeed, some advocates argue that saving money is a big part of the point. The Canadian media has even celebrated that potential.

The Jason Arday scandal was a tragedy because it resulted in the death, probably by suicide, of a disturbed man who lied and plagiarized his way to the highest levels of academic celebrity at Cambridge University. Everyone should mourn that outcome.

But too many among the liberal intelligentsia seem intent on conjuring the wrong causes for the mess their own attitudes created. Rather than recognizing the potentially dire individual, institutional, and societal consequences that can result from elevating people beyond their actual capabilities, the editors of Nature instead castigate Cambridge for turning on Arday when his fabulism and egregious academic wrongdoing became undeniable:

Arday’s fate is distressing, and especially so for Black scholars and those from other communities that are under-represented in academic research, many members of which report feeling vulnerable and unsupported at this time. There is systemic racism in academia. It is an unwelcoming place for many who enter it through hardship and struggle, as Arday’s story illustrates. It is not acceptable that these barriers persist. On top of this, scholars from Black and other under-represented communities fear that the intensity of attention Arday faced could one day be focused on them. The question many are asking is: ‘Could I be next?’

Wesley J. Smith joined host Simon O’Connor on Family Matters, a show from Family First New Zealand, to discuss current efforts to force medical professionals with religious and conscientious objections to participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia. Smith specifically highlights the danger that these threats pose, as they would drive talented people away from the medical field. Smith and O’Connor also discuss the trend of medicine becoming something like a “vending machine” as it’s been made into a consumer service. “Patient autonomy, of course, is a part of medicine,” Smith explains. “But doctors are not automatons and they should not be forced to do things that run contrary to their beliefs and their ethics.” Read Wesley J. Smith’s piece, “Nuns Read More ›