Wesley J. Smith

Serious moves are afoot to allow ending the lives of dementia patients, either by allowing them to be killed by lethal jab euthanasia if requested in a written advance directive (where legal), or to allow a document to be signed requiring caregivers to withhold sufficient food and water to sustain life. New Jersey seems to move subtly in the latter direction with a vaguely worded bill, S.B. 4186, that could open the door to intentional legal undernourishment. From the bill: It is the public policy of this State to respect the dignity, autonomy, and previously expressed wishes of individuals living with dementia by authorizing Dementia-Specific Advance Directives (DSADs), establishing clear standards for “comfort feeding only,” and ensuring that such directives Read More ›

The attacks on one of the fundamental essences of being human — free will — continue apace. The latest example can be found in the BBC’s Science Focus feature, in which Stanford biology professor Robert Sapolsky — a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant for his work on the physiological effects of stress — redefines us as merely robotic biological machines incapable of making truly free decisions. We only think we “could have done otherwise” than what we did, claims Sapolsky. From the BBC interview: Acting on something and knowing you could have done otherwise is often necessary and sufficient to decide that free has just happened. Where I come in pulling my hair out is that doing that misses Read More ›

These days, it seems that everything is about bioethics. Case in point: A zoologist named Sam Zeveloff has criticized RFK Jr. in Stat News for disrespecting a dead raccoon back in 2001 by allegedly dissecting its penis. This act, the emeritus professor claims, raises “critical questions” that must be addressed.

Oh my. One wonders about the possible moral stakes of this historical cadaveric mutilation.

Such phallus-collecting, we are told by Zeveloff, is fine so long as it’s done for a valid scientific or educational purpose. In fact, the author brags that he has collected raccoon phalluses himself, some of which are displayed at the Icelandic Phallological Museum. Okaaay.

But Kennedy’s cadaveric collecting wasn’t, from a bioethical standpoint, properly “scientific”:

If Kennedy collected a racoon specimen without a defined scientific or educational purpose, the ethical justification becomes less clear. Indeed, the public has no idea about why he would stop a car filled with his family members and cut out a raccoon’s penis from a carcass.

Canada has gone hog wild for euthanasia. But the pro-death tide may — may — be beginning to turn. The province of Alberta just passed a bill that significantly restricts eligibility for euthanasia (medical aid in dying, or MAID), soon to be signed into binding law. The biggest change in Bill 18 ends the eligibility of non-terminally-ill patients to be MAIDed (known as Track 2). Among the provisions of Bill 18 (“Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act”), as summarized by the government: Eligibility in Alberta to individuals 18 and over with capacity to make their own health care decision whose natural death has been determined by a physician or nurse practitioner as being reasonably foreseeable, also known as Read More ›

Uterine transplants are becoming more common to enable infertile women — and perhaps, eventually men — to give birth. How’s that project going? A new study detailing the outcomes of more than 40 cases of uterine transplants and subsequent IVF-enabled pregnancies published in JAMA provides details: Between 2016 and March 2026, a total of 44 women underwent uterus transplant. One month after uterus transplant, 37 women had a viable transplanted uterus. As of April 2026, a total of 33 women underwent embryo transfer (90 embryos), resulting in 47 clinical pregnancies in 31 unique women, 39 of which continued to at least 14 weeks’ gestation. In 27 unique women, there were 31 live births: 23 women delivered 1 child and 4 Read More ›

Last year, I wrote here warning about a bioethics paper that advocated restricting the amount of orally received food and water given to dementia patients, an intentional undernourishment approach that the authors labeled “minimal comfort feeding.” Well, the idea of death by intentional undernourishment has now hit the big time in the popular media with a long New York Times piece telling the story of a dementia patient who died under that regimen. I expect it to spark a national conversation. (I make a brief appearance in the piece. The reporter, Kate Raphael, could not have been more cordial and presented my views accurately. Also, she offers plenty of objections from medical professionals, so this response should not be deemed Read More ›

David Morens was formerly a senior adviser to Anthony Fauci when he was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Morens also co-authored several science papers with the former director. One of these argued hubristically in Cell that the U.N. and the World Health Organization should be empowered to “rebuild the structure of human existence” toward the end of preventing future pandemics. Imagine the bureaucratic possibilities! Back in 2024, Morens was suspected of avoiding FOIA requests around the funding of gain-of-function research that might have led to Covid. Soon thereafter, Fauci distanced himself from his former colleague in congressional testimony, stating that while Morens had helped with some science papers, he wasn’t really an adviser Read More ›

The other day, I wrote about Wendy Duffy, a healthy woman in deep grief because of the death of her son, who was planning to die at a Swiss death clinic. Alas, Duffy apparently did the deed. From the New York Post story: The physically healthy British mom, irreparably heartbroken over the death of her only son, died by euthanasia in Switzerland on Friday. Wendy Duffy, 56, died at the Pegasos assisted suicide clinic in Basel, in what the controversial organization called a “sane suicide,” the Daily Mail reported. “I can confirm that Wendy Duffy, at her own request, was assisted to die on April 24 and that the procedure was completed without incident and in full compliance with her Read More ›

A grieving mother who is in good health has been accepted for termination by a Swiss suicide clinic. From the New York Post story: A physically healthy British woman heartbroken over the death of her only son is heading to Switzerland to end her own life at an assisted suicide clinic. Wendy Duffy, 56, attempted to take her own life after her son died four years ago — but is soon bound for Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, after her application was accepted by a clinic, according to the London Times. Duffy, a former care worker from the West Midlands, told the Daily Mail that she paid Pegasos, a Swiss assisted-dying nonprofit organization, $13,500 to euthanize herself under its Read More ›

Assisted suicide is not discussed much at the federal level. But at a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator James Lankford (R., Okla.) asked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his thoughts on assisted suicide. Kennedy was unequivocal (starting at minute 3:30): Lankford: I want to switch to an issue we have not had a lot of time to talk about and that is assisted suicide. We now have three states, California, Colorado, and Vermont that disability groups are filing against some of the assisted suicide laws because it seems to target those with disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, that act has worked to protect those with disabilities, not incentivize them to take their own Read More ›