Uncategorized

Vox has published a piece that expresses some surprise at the fact that many conservatives and MAGA (not the same thing) support animal welfare. The writer discusses, among other things, RFK Jr.’s recently announced plan to phase out all government support for animal research:

Over the past decade, it’s been fascinating to see the animal rights movement — which is mostly comprised of left-leaning activists — reckon with the fact that an administration they largely oppose has taken some actions to help animals. Especially on the animal experimentation issue, it’s led to a “diverse, sometimes-uneasy coalition of animal welfare advocates, science reformers, and far-right political figures,” as journalist Rachel Fobar put it for Vox last year. But that coalition, with all its contradictions and disagreements, represents what little hope there is to prevent animal cruelty at the federal level.

The article makes the common media mistake of conflating animal welfare and animal rights. But the two ideological approaches are not the same at all.

Animal rights is an ideology that sees no moral difference between humans and other animals. It claims that rights come from the ability to suffer (“painience”). Since a cow can feel pain, bovines are equal to humans, and cattle ranching is akin to slavery. In other words, animals have the right to never be used instrumentally for any purpose no matter how much it might benefit humankind. Or, as PETA’s leader Ingrid Newkirk infamously once put it, “A rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a boy.”

What happens when influence is exercised without restraint and conspiracy replaces evidence? In today’s episode of Bioethics Babe, I’m joined by Simone Rizkalla, Catholic educator, speaker, writer, and host of the Beyond Rome podcast to examine the controversy surrounding Candace Owens and Erika Kirk, not as internet drama, but as a serious ethical case study. This conversation explores the cost of conspiracy thinking, the moral responsibilities that come with large platforms, and how misinformation, reputational harm, and reckless speculation threaten human dignity, truth, and community trust in the digital age. We ask hard questions: This episode goes beyond the culture war to examine the bioethics of influence, the psychology of conspiracy narratives, and what justice, accountability, and repentance look like Read More ›

One of my greatest frustrations has been the general silence of suicide prevention organizations in the face of the legalization of assisted suicide in various jurisdictions. To me, this failure has been an abdication of such groups’ core responsibility because it ignores some suicides, does not oppose facilitation of the suicides of the ill and disabled, and does not grapple with the adverse impact that assisted suicide advocacy can have on suicidal people generally.

That silence has now ended. The International Association for Suicide Prevention just issued a (not quite strong enough) position paper that (equivocally) opposes legalization. From, the “IASP Position Statement on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (2025)” (my emphasis):

At the present time, countries and jurisdictions are increasingly legalising and regulating assisted suicide, euthanasia, or both practices (sometimes called “Medically Assisted Death,” “Physician Assisted Death,” “Medical Aid in Dying” or similar terms). Assisted suicide is when a medical practitioner provides a patient who has asked to die with the means, usually prescription drugs, for the patient to self-administer to end their own life. Euthanasia is when the medical practitioner directly administers the lethal substance.

There is a strong potential for overlap or equivalence between what we consider to be suicide and euthanasia and assisted suicide (EaAS), particularly when EaAS is provided not at the end of life and instead to those with chronic conditions for whom death is not imminent.…

Read More ›

When assisted suicide is first proposed for legalization, we are assured by death activists that strict guidelines will protect against abuse. But they don’t mean it. Once the laws pass, the supposed protections — which are always flaccid to begin with — are soon redefined by activists and the media as “barriers,” et voila, the laws are soon loosened. It’s all a con, but people seem to fall for it every time.

This pattern can be seen vividly playing out in Victoria, Australia. The state was the first in that country to legalize assisted suicide, and now the government is making more people eligible for legally hastened death. From the premier’s announcement:

The new legislation will remove unnecessary barriers to accessing VAD, improve clarity for practitioners, strengthen safety measurements and make the system fairer and more compassionate.

See what I mean? “Strengthen safety,” (!!!) and “fairer and more compassionate,” really just means more people can become dead much sooner.

In this deeply moving episode, Bishop James Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln shares his remarkable journey of faith, conversion, and healing. From his path to the Catholic Church and his vocation to the priesthood, to his honest reflections on struggling with depression and finding hope in Christ, Bishop Conley offers a profound Catholic perspective on mental health, reminding listeners that holiness and healing can be achieved even amidst mental struggles. He opens up about what led him to write his pastoral letter A Future with Hope, how faith and therapy can work together, and why surrender and community are essential to the healing process. With his characteristic wisdom, humility, and warmth, Bishop Conley reminds us that even in darkness, Read More ›

About a month ago, some bioethicists claimed that bioethics should prevent climate change. My eyes had finally stopped rolling when lo and behold, I learn from three UN Women researchers — in Scientific American, no less — that feminism holds the real key to preventing the planet from cooking. As you would expect, the opinion piece is a godawful mess that attacks capitalism and the use of fossil fuels, in other words, its authors disdain prosperity. From “How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action:” The current economic system that underpins that status quo is rooted in the extraction of natural resources and exploitation of cheap or unpaid labor, often done by women and marginalized communities. This system therefore drives the climate crisis while perpetuating inequalities based Read More ›

San Francisco was once a conservative city. Oh, sure, it had its bohemian side. The Beats of the ’50s were at home in North Beach, and Harry Bridges, the suspected communist who served for years as head of the longshoremen’s union, had a definite influence. But for the most part, San Francisco was well within the cultural mainstream. Indeed, the city was so staid that the Republican Party’s nominee for mayor won landslides in 1955 and 1959, and the GOP nominated the archconservative Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate from the Cow Palace in 1964.

Then, San Francisco changed. Radically. In 1964, the University of California, Berkeley, a few miles across the bay, became the center of the “free speech” movement. Civil rights and then militant anti–Vietnam War advocacy found great sympathy. The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood became a hippy haven and the focus of a growing drug culture. The gay-rights movement sprang energetically out of the Castro District, and the once predominately Italian working-class neighborhood was transformed into a radical front of the sexual revolution. By the 1980s, the term “San Francisco values” — wielded by conservatives to describe the cultural and political radicalism of the Bay Area — had turned the city into something of a national joke.

Over the years, policies enacted by the city’s ever more extreme progressive leaders slowly destroyed San Francisco. I lived in and around the city for almost 25 years, starting in 1992, and saw the decline happen in real time. It broke my heart.

Nature is supposedly the most respected science journal in the world. But its reputation is sinking because it has become so overtly political, as with its decision last summer to endorse Kamala Harris for president. Now, in the mushiest softball Q&A one can imagine, the journal is boosting an anti-Israel protester and promoting her views on Israel’s war with Hamas. What’s the science hook? Well, there isn’t one beyond the protester’s being a doctoral student at MIT. From “Why this PhD candidate joined campus protests against the Israel–Hamas war”: Jessica Metzger, a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, researches non-equilibrium statistical physics — the study of how matter, especially living matter, behaves. Metzger traces her love of scientific exploration to Read More ›

This is how the scientific method is supposed to work. For years, a neuroscientist and National Institutes of Health official named Eliezer Masliah led the field in researching dementia, Parkinson’s, and other neurological diseases. His work became primary bases for developing experimental treatments, offering hope for these scourges of human aging. But now, Science reports that much of this research was mistakenly compiled — or worse. From “Picture Imperfect:” Over the past 2 years questions have arisen about some of Masliah’s research. A Science investigation has now found that scores of his lab studies at UCSD and NIA are riddled with apparently falsified Western blots—images used to show the presence of proteins—and micrographs of brain tissue. Numerous images seem to have been inappropriately reused within Read More ›