Wesley J. Smith

The medical/scientific intelligentsia and the political Left seemingly want every political controversy and cultural problem transformed into a public-health threat. Let us count them: Climate change, racism, gun control, a dearth of left-wing economics policies, even war. Now, a column by Michael Luo, an executive editor at the New Yorker, urges that political violence be categorized in the same way. From, “Should Political Violence be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health?”: The principal aim of public health is prevention. It takes its scientific cues primarily from epidemiology, which studies the prevalence of diseases and their determinants to shape control strategies. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, public-health practitioners began to incorporate these methods into a nascent discipline known as injury science, taking on problems such as children falling from windows, residential fires, childhood Read More ›

Back in 1993, my first anti-euthanasia piece, published in Newsweek, warned that if we legalized assisted suicide, organ harvesting would eventually be included as a “plum to society.” “Alarmist!” my hate mail screeched. “Slippery slope fallacy!” etc. Even those who agreed with my overall critique assured me it would never come to pass. And yet it did. Conjoining organ harvesting with euthanasia is now deemed so respectable it is even boosted at the highest levels of the medical establishment. JAMA Surgery just assured us that kidneys harvested from patients killed in hospitals — as happens in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada — work better and sooner. And remember, many of these killed donors were not terminally ill. “Kidney Transplant Outcomes Following Donation After Euthanasia” Read More ›

The ghoulish Australian “doctor” Philip Nitschke has long been obsessed with making suicide readily available to anyone who wants to die. Indeed, years ago, he told NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez that he wanted what he called “peaceful” suicide pills sold in supermarkets, even to “troubled teens.” Nitschke also sold plastic suicide bags in Australia (which I helped cause to be outlawed when I busted him for his ghoulishness in the national media there in 2001). Subsequently, he traveled the world teaching how-to-commit-suicide classes and starred at international death-movement conventions. Awful. More recently, Nitschke made world headlines in the assisted-suicide-boosting media for inventing a “suicide capsule” that asphyxiates the suicidal person with nitrogen. At first, Swiss authorities said it would be legal, and then they backtracked. Legal or Read More ›

Suprise! Governor John Carney has vetoed legislation that barely passed in Delaware that would have legalized assisted suicide. From the Governor’s veto message: During my time as Governor, and since this legislation was first introduced, I have consistently opposed a state law that would allow physician-assisted suicide. I have always recognized, and do today, that this is a deeply personal issue. Supporters and opponents alike have thoughtful views on the subject, in many cases informed by their own painful, personal experiences. Over the past several years, I have listened to legislators, advocates, and constituents who have reached out to me and my team to share their views. I also followed the action of the Delaware General Assembly, where this legislation passed Read More ›

The nature-rights movement continues to advance, and that’s bad for human thriving. Now, a “tribunal” will be held in New York — coinciding with Climate Week NYC 2024 — to promote the rights of nature and undermine public support for fossil fuels. The tribunal’s website is typical of the anti-humanism that permeates the nature-rights movement. For example, the fundamental philosophy of nature rights — as elucidated at the website, is “that the interests of nonhuman beings are of equal importance to human interests.” So, pond scum, mosquitoes, trees, squirrels, grass, and scallops are equal to us. That’s self-loathing any way you look at it. Worse, adopting such a misanthropic approach to environmentalism would have serious consequences to human thriving. For example, forget about heating Read More ›

The science establishment continues to politicize “science” — and that ain’t good for science.

In July, Nature — supposedly the most respected science journal in the world — endorsed Kamala Harris. Now, following the ideological leader, so has Scientific American.

And what a sad joke the endorsement is. For example, the editorial repeats the lie that Trump told people to inject bleach to fight Covid. From the editorial:

Trump touted his pandemic efforts during his first debate with Harris, but in 2020 he encouraged resistance to basic public health measures, spread misinformation about treatments and suggested injections of bleach could cure the disease.

No. He. Did. Not.

How can an editorial in a supposedly factually based scientific publication be trusted as dispositive when it pushes a lie that has repeatedly been debunked — even by Snopes? This alone should discredit SA as a reliable guide to voting.