Wesley J. Smith

Over at Second Hand Smoke, a secret camera filmed a conversation between a bioethicist and a doctor about how “thinking bioethically” means it is okay to kill babies.

I listened to Wesley J. Smith’s lecture a few days ago and have been thinking about it ever since (listen to it here). Some thoughts in no particular order:

1. It is very good that St. Tikhon’s invited Smith to speak for several reasons. First it introduces the seminarians to the concrete questions debated in the larger culture and thus the hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices where end of life decisions are made. They will be called on to consult with families to help make these decisions and must be able to recognize the ideas behind the differing opinions that health care professionals offer in these situations.
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From First Thoughts by Wesley J. Smith:

Peter Singer Sympathetic to Human Extinction as Way of Avoiding Suffering

Wesley J. Smith

Peter Singer blogs at the New York Times about a new book (Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, by David Benetar) that apparently advocates human extinction as a way of preventing human suffering. Singer doesn’t agree, but is clearly sympathetic. From Singer’s post:

I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings?

We have to “justify” continuing the species? Good grief. Under the influence of anti-human advocates like Peter Singer, we have gone in the West from seeking to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity,” to seriously questioning whether there should be any posterity at all. This is not healthy. But it is the natural consequence of rejecting human exceptionalism.

If you are interested, I have a more detailed analysis over at Secondhand Smoke.

Read below and you’ll see one reason why we need a unified Orthodox Church in America. Wesley J. Smith, human rights activist and occasional contributor to AOI Observer, warns about a bill winding through congress that will surreptitiously fund human cloning. We could have something to say about that.

A friend of mine, an Orthodox priest who studied under Leon J. Kass, one of the great public thinkers in America today (see: Smith on Kass), was asked by Dr. Kass when the Orthodox are going to make their contribution. The Orthodox, he said, have the most developed anthropology of any religious tradition in the world.

We’re Americans. The debates will be raucous — it’s the American way, but they will substantive, fruitful, and when they are done something better will emerge from it — that’s the great promise of America and it is still fulfilled for those who understand freedom and are willing to take responsibility for it. And when unity comes (it can and it will), the important words will ring with more clarity — especially on the great questions of human value and purpose.

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Stealth Legislation to Federally Fund Human Cloning

The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network

By Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith

Embryonic stem cells aren’t much in the news these days. President Bush’s embryonic stem cell funding restrictions are history and the invention of induced pluripotent stem cells may allow scientists to obtain the benefits of embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.

But that doesn’t mean the struggle over our biotechnological future is over. To the contrary, the current relative quiet is merely a pregnant pause before the real storm descends that will decide—in the CBC’s pithy phrase—whether we will allow doctors and scientists to “take, make, and fake” human life.

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