Wesley J. Smith

Fetal personhood is a controversial issue that deserves respectful debate. But the New England Journal of Medicine just published a screed by two Ph.D.s associating its advocates with past slave-holding racists and — by strong implication — devaluing unborn human life as having zero intrinsic value. First, the article claims that pregnancy has been “criminalized.” From, “Fetal Personhood and Reproductive Criminalization” (citations omitted): Fetal personhood ideology is the underlying force behind abortion bans and restrictions, the prosecution of pregnant women because of conduct deemed potentially harmful to the fetus, and fetal homicide laws that allow a fetus to be treated as the victim of a crime. As a result of this ideology being embedded in state laws and judicial decisions, Read More ›

Two A-list Hollywood actors will star in a pro-assisted-suicide movie. From the Hollywood Reporter story: George Clooney and Annette Bening will star in In Love, an adaptation of Amy Bloom’s New York Times best-selling memoir In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss that is to be directed by Paul Weitz.… With In Love, Bloom wrote about how she slowly lost her husband to Alzheimer’s, how the two made the decision to travel to Switzerland to end his life, and the struggle to move forward as a widow. The book was an affirmation of love and the power of relationships. It was also named TIME Magazine‘s No. 1 best nonfiction book and included on their list of 100 must-read books. Read More ›

A few months ago, I posted about a Republican proposal in Wisconsin to have the state legally preempt local ordinances that grant “rights” to nature. I predicted that, if the bill passed, the Democratic governor would veto it because the nature rights movement is quickly entering the progressive mainstream. Well, no veto yet, since the bill hasn’t passed. But some Democratic legislators have reacted against the legislation by proposing a joint resolution in favor of granting “inherent rights to nature.” Par for the course, they bow to the supposedly superior environmental wisdom of indigenous people. From the proposed joint resolution: Whereas, Indigenous communities…have lived in respectful relationships with the land that is now Wisconsin for thousands of years, and their Read More ›

Should men have the right to have their cells manipulated so they can become biological mothers? Should women past child-bearing age have the same right if their own eggs are no longer viable? More to the point, should we all have the right to do whatever it takes to have a baby if that is our desire and also, to obtain the baby we want?

These questions have ceased to be grist for science fiction authors. Researchers recently announced that they have genetically manipulated human skin cells to become eggs, including those of men (the idea being to eventually enable both members of a same sex couple to have a genetic connection with their child). Then, after more genetic tinkering, the eggs were fertilized into embryos via IVF. Finally, the biotechnologists monitored embryonic development until the experiment was stopped, and the embryos destroyed.

No pregnancy has been established with this technique. But that is cold comfort. The researchers plan to keep experimenting and I have little doubt that when they overcome remaining technical difficulties, someone will create a pregnancy using “skin cell” embryos. After all, what beyond self-restraint—currently in little supply in this field—is to stop them?

Public-advocacy-focused secular bioethics is largely progressive politics covered with a veneer of expertise. While there are certainly university courses and degrees in the field, no bioethicist is licensed as such. Indeed, the entire discourse is purely subjective. It is driven mostly by philosophers, professors, doctors, and lawyers who opine about a particular set of issues, your faithful correspondent included.

But now, members of the tribe apparently want to pretend that secular bioethics has become such a deeply ingrained part of our societal bedrock that it qualifies as a moral tradition. From, “Bioethics as an Emerging Moral Tradition and Some Implications for Adversarial Cooperation,” published in the influential Journal of Medical Ethics (citations omitted):

In a forthcoming book titled The Emerging Tradition of Secular Bioethics,…we focus on whether the field of bioethics in the pluralistic and increasingly polarised American context can give justified moral guidance in foundational, clinical, research and public health domains. We argue against a proceduralistic account of bioethics that limits the field to analysing moral problems and clarifying key concepts but never offering substantive moral guidance. We also reject an Enlightenment account of bioethics based on universal, neutral and abstract rational standards and moral first principles that are undeniable by any reasonable person and that can (in theory) eliminate all fundamental moral disagreements. Rather, we argue that while once naming a discourse through which various historically embedded moral traditions could discuss ethical challenges, bioethics is now an emerging content-full moral tradition in its own right.

Notice that the entire premise excludes the moral influence of religion — which is a much deeper tradition with a far longer history — even though one of the founding fathers of bioethics was the great Christian theologian Paul Ramsey. Moreover, some of the most vibrant minds arguing against contemporary mainstream views — such as the astute Catholic bioethicist Charles Camosy (among many others) — would seem, by definition, to be excluded from the supposed “moral tradition” because their principles are profoundly influenced by faith. (For those who would applaud, please recall that eugenics was a progressive secular policy resisted most vociferously by the Catholic Church.)

The hyper-politicization of science and medical journals has contributed substantially to the public’s loss of trust in expert institutions. When ideology drives professional discourse, how can we fully trust the studies that are published as being objective or have confidence that scholarly reports reaching contrary conclusions to the beliefs of the editors will not be rejected based on politics alone? We already know that such editorial biases undermine objective scientific scholarship. A new editorial in The Lancet illustrates the extent to which woke activism in the journals pollutes the intellectual ground as the editors claim that “far right” political beliefs harm the public health. From, “The Far-Right and Health: An Evolving Political Crisis“: Across Europe and North America, racism, xenophobia, Read More ›

Euthanasia/assisted suicide “protective guidelines” don’t really protect against abuse. They mostly serve as window dressings to make people comfortable with killing the sick. And soon after legalization, the vaunted protections are redefined by activists and the media as “barriers” to death, which become the pretext for loosening the already slack guidelines. The speed at which that happens varies, but the pattern rarely fails. Here’s an example. In Canada, a person is supposed to explicitly request and consent to being killed by a lethal jab. But a dementia patient was recently euthanized at the request of her family. From the National Post story: A frail women [sic] in her late 80s with dementia received MAID after a family member brought forward Read More ›

Resources are being invested at an astounding level in radical reproductive technologies. Now, researchers have created human eggs from skin cells and successfully fertilized some of them with IVF. From the Guardian story: Researchers have created human eggs from skin cells, potentially transforming IVF treatment for couples who have no other options. The work is at an early stage but if scientists can perfect the process it would provide genetically related eggs for women who are infertile because of older age, illness or medical treatment. The same procedure could be used to make eggs for same-sex male couples. The effort involved a cloning-like technique: The Oregon team took a similar approach by collecting skin cells from women and removing the Read More ›

Once we decided that killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, the kind of suffering that qualifies us to be made dead continually expands. Now, an elderly British couple have committed joint assisted suicide at a Swiss termination clinic to avoid future widowhood and increasing fragility — in other words, to eliminate future suffering. From the Daily Record story: A devoted couple who “couldn’t bear to be apart” have died together at a Swiss assisted dying clinic after sending emails to their relatives to let them know. Neither Michael Posner, 97, nor his wife Ruth, 96, had a terminal illness, but had made the decision to die together because they were desperate not to be apart after 75 years of Read More ›

If everything has rights — trees, geological features, animals, waves (yes, waves!) — then the core principle protecting human liberty becomes as worthless as currency during a wild inflation. Now, illustrating the Luddite sensibilities that permeate environmentalism generally and the nature rights movement specifically, a science journal has published advocacy by three astrobiology “ethicists” urging that planets, moons, and even space microbes be granted rights. The authors are earnestly serious about their subject. They expend thousands of words discussing the history of the rights of nature movement and existing treaties that apply to space exploration. They then argue that planets be deemed juridical entities, a proposal that environmental radicals have previously urged apply to the moon, i.e., “the right to Read More ›