http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/wesleyjsmith/ en-us Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:54:57 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2264035/posts LANSDOWNE, Virginia, June 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A culture that seeks to escape suffering and inconvenience at all costs will end by eliminating not only pain, but by ending the lives of those suffering or whose condition burden their families, warned bioethicist Wesley J. Smith this weekend.Smith spoke at the Second International Euthanasia Symposium held at the National Conference Center in Lansdowne, Virginia. The symposium was hosted by Canada's Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Reflecting on the euthanasia agenda amid the modern advances of palliative care, Smith asked, "Why now?" "We live in a time of - even despite the problems we're having... LifeSiteNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2264035/posts#comment Wed, 3 Jun 2009 19:54:57 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2207752/posts Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- The number of assisted suicides in Oregon has increased 30 percent in the last two years and euthanasia activists themselves may have provided the reasons why. It appears members of Compassion & Choices have infiltrated the hospice system and are urging patients to kill themselves.LifeNews.com reported on the increase earlier this month, but a Compassion & Choice press release last week provided an interesting take on the report.The group said that "nearly 100% of terminally ill individuals using the law in 2008 were enrolled in hospice.""Hospice enrollment among those using the Act increased to 98%,... Life News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2207752/posts#comment Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:30:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2037624/posts The promoters of embryonic stem cell enterprises continue to tout soon to come “breakthroughs” accompanied by supine media coverage and inaccurate statements by “the scientists” who twist and distort scientific definitions to win a political debate. Such spin in the name of science, actually corrupts science. Latest example: Another company is claiming that “next year” it will start human ESC trials. From a column by Orange County Register “biomedical innovation” columnist Colin Stewart, who has apparently drunk the Kool-Aid. First there is his cruelly hyped headline: “ALS patients could get help from stem cells next year:” From his column:... bioethics.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2037624/posts#comment Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:39:17 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679027/posts IT HAS BEEN REPEATED so often that it is now a mantra: "Embryonic stem cells offer the most promise for finding cures" for degenerative diseases and conditions such as Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury. But saying something ten thousand times doesn't make it true. Indeed, the embryonic stem cell mantra has yet to be demonstrated scientifically. More than that, the actual data published to date in peer-reviewed science journals tell a far different story. While there have certainly been successes in embryonic stem cell experiments in animal studies--many of them hyped to the hilt in mainstream media reports--the numbers... The Weekly Standard http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679027/posts#comment Mon, 7 Aug 2006 07:28:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000428/posts Lord Patel of Dunkeld, chairman of the UK National Stem Cell Network and chancellor of Dundee University, told the Scotsman earlier this week that research involving stem cells would likely lead to therapies, but that ultimately such treatments could prove too risky for human use. He also said it could be five to ten years before viable stem cell treatments were available. But even then, he observed, "We have to be cautious. It may not deliver therapy for anything. We may find that stem therapy is quite a risky business." In terms of the efficacy of stem cell cures, Lord... LifeSiteNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000428/posts#comment Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:44:18 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1936428/posts TORONTO, December 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The American author of several highly acclaimed books on the life issues, Wesley J. Smith, spoke to the issue of "Future Concerns" at the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition's international symposium in Toronto, Canada on December 1st, 2007.  Speaking near the conference's conclusion, Smith brought together the themes of the various speakers in his presentation, highlighting several key developments in the strategy of the pro-euthanasia, assisted suicide lobby, and pointing out changes in medical practices touted in some of the leading medical journals and being implemented in a growing number of hospitals.  Smith noted that a... LifeSiteNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1936428/posts#comment Sat, 8 Dec 2007 00:31:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1912145/posts Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. His latest book is Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. I think Bobby Schindler is right.There have been a lot of stories of late about how supposedly vegetative patients could understand, or of "miraculous" awakenings by people who doctors were sure would never react consciously again. Bobby, Terri Schiavo's brother, has noticed that whatever the condition of the patient whose story is being told, the reports all have a common sub theme--the awakening, comprehension,... Life News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1912145/posts#comment Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:42:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1930952/posts Throughout his presidency, the Science Intelligentsia has castigated President Bush for placing limits on the federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research (ESCR). Acting as if he had a banned ESCR, which of course he hadn’t, “the scientists” and their camp followers in the media and on Capital Hill accused the president of withholding cures from the ill in order to impose his religious beliefs on a reluctant public.  Little noted in all of the caterwauling, was that ESCR and human-cloning research (SCNT) have been funded bounteously — to the tune of nearly $2 billion. Not only has the National Institutes of... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1930952/posts#comment Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:32:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930945/posts As we celebrate the creation and potential of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, adult stem cell research continues to bear fruit in animal and human studies. The latest is a truly exciting find out of Stanford University: Blood stem cells taken from a donor with a healthy immune system effectively treated multiple sclerosis and arthritis in mice. From the story in the Telegraph: Thousands of patients with arthritis and multiple sclerosis are given new hope today by scientists who have developed a way to alter the immune system.Both conditions are caused when the immune system becomes faulty and attacks the body.... Wesley J. Smith http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930945/posts#comment Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:14:24 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1903771/posts Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. His latest book is Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World. Remember those quaint old days when biotechnologists told us that “all” they wanted to effectuate embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) was merely access to leftover in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos “that were going to be tossed out anyway?” Actually, I misspeak. Those days might have been quaint but they definitely aren't old. Human embryonic stem cells were only derived in 1998; the great ESCR debate... Life News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1903771/posts#comment Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:01:04 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1787365/posts LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. Visit his web blog at http://www.wesleyjsmith.com.The Swiss Supreme Court recently ruled that people with mental illnesses can be legally assisted in suicide. The case came about when a member of Dignitas, an organization, which, for a fee, provides a safe house for—and assistance with—suicide, brought a lawsuit seeking the right to die.   The man does not have cancer, AIDS or other physical illness, as that term is popularly understood. Rather, he is depressed from bipolar disease.... LIfe News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1787365/posts#comment Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:34:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1734804/posts The pattern in the media reportage about stem cells is growing very wearisome. When a research advance occurs with embryonic stem cells, the media usually give the story the brass-band treatment. However, when researchers announce even greater success using adult stem cells, the media reportage is generally about as intense and excited as a stifled yawn. As a consequence, many people in this country continue to believe that embryonic stem cells offer the greatest promise for developing new medical treatments using the body's cells -- known as regenerative medicine -- while in actuality, adult and alternative sources of stem cells... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1734804/posts#comment Wed, 8 Nov 2006 15:33:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1726267/posts http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/comment/smith200405130858.asp May 13, 2004, 8:58 a.m. The Wrong Tree Embryonic stem cells are not all that. By Wesley J. Smith Once again the media are trumpeting the call among many in Congress, pushed by millions in Big Biotech lobbying money, for President Bush to reverse his decision to limit federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research (ESCR) to those lines already in existence on August 9, 2001. Fronted this time by the grief-stricken Nancy Reagan, and boosted by Hollywood celebrities such as Christopher Reeve, Michael J. Fox, and Mary Tyler Moore, we are warned darkly, as a recent New York Times editorial... http://www.nationalreview.com/ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1726267/posts#comment Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:32:20 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1136766/posts LifeNews Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. His next book, to be published in the fall, is Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World.Once again the media are trumpeting the call among many in Congress, pushed by millions in Big Biotech lobbying money, for President Bush to reverse his decision to limit federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research (ESCR) to those lines already in existence on August 9, 2001. Fronted this time by the grief-stricken Nancy Reagan, and boosted by Hollywood celebrities such as... Lifenews.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1136766/posts#comment Mon, 17 May 2004 00:37:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211678/posts E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version September 09, 2004, 8:35 a.m. The "Wrong" CureAdult stem cells get the shaft. By Wesley J. Smith Members of the liberal media elite have become rather choosy when it comes to advocating stem-cell cures for degenerative medical conditions. To these commentators, cures using adult stem cells just aren't the "right" cures. For stem-cell therapy to really count, it has to come from embryos. Indeed, even the most astonishing research advances using adult cells are ignored by these arbiters of public policy as if they never... NRO http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211678/posts#comment Fri, 10 Sep 2004 03:56:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493280/posts Adult Stem Cell Research Treats Spinal Cord Injury Patient   LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture. An attorney, Smith's new book Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World was published last year. I have known about this for some time, but because I didn't want to be guilty of the same hyping that is so often engaged in by some therapeutic cloning proponents, I waited until it was published in a peer reviewed journal.Now it has been and the... Life News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493280/posts#comment Thu, 29 Sep 2005 02:51:08 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493298/posts Paraplegic breakthrough using adult stem cells Apparent major breakthrough with patient paralyzed 19 years Posted: September 28, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com In an apparent major breakthrough, scientists in Korea report using umbilical cord blood stem cells to restore feeling and mobility to a spinal-cord injury patient. The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cythotherapy, centered on a woman who had been a paraplegic 19 years due to an accident. After an infusion of umbilical cord blood stem cells, stunning results were recorded: "The patient could move her hips and feel her hip skin on day 15 after... WorldNetDaily.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493298/posts#comment Thu, 29 Sep 2005 03:30:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1627109/posts The right-to-die movement abandons pretense.   There is a pretense in contemporary assisted suicide advocacy that goes something like this: "Aid in dying" (as it is euphemistically called) is merely to be a safety valve, a last resort only available to imminently dying patients for whom nothing else can be done to alleviate      suffering.   Meanwhile, in the real world, the founder of the Swiss suicide facilitating organization Dignitas is just about done with pretense. The Sunday Times Magazine (London) reported that Dignitas' founder, Ludwig Minelli, plans to create sort of a Starbucks for suicide: a chain of death centers "to end... CERC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1627109/posts#comment Fri, 5 May 2006 04:47:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1603760/posts AT LAST A HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL in Europe got up the nerve to chastise the Dutch government for preparing to legalize infant euthanasia. Italy's Parliamentary Affairs minister, Carlo Giovanardi, said during a radio debate: "Nazi legislation and Hitler's ideas are reemerging in Europe via Dutch euthanasia laws and the debate on how to kill ill children." Unsurprisingly, the Dutch, ever prickly about international criticism of their peculiar institution, were outraged. Giovanardi's critique cut so deeply that even Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende felt the need to respond, sniffing, "This [Giovanardi's assertion] is scandalous and unacceptable. This is not the... Weekly Standard http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1603760/posts#comment Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:38:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1593210/posts Harm DoneCodifying the decline of the medical profession. In 2000, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that patients being euthanized in the Netherlands sometimes experienced significant side effects (apart from death, that is), such as nausea, convulsions, or coma. This belied the assertion oft made by euthanasia proponents that being killed by a doctor necessarily provides the euphemistic “gentle landing” of euthanasia lore.  Responding to the Netherlands report, the NEJM published an editorial authored by Dr. Sherwin Nuland, author of the bestselling book How We Die and an internationally prominent physician and bioethicist from Yale University. Nuland, a... NRO http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1593210/posts#comment Thu, 9 Mar 2006 17:33:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1569375/posts In the court (and courts) of life and death, a little 11-year-old Massachusetts girl named Haleigh Poutre could be the next Terri Schiavo. For those who have not heard the tragic story, Haleigh was beaten nearly to death last September, allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather. The beating left her unconscious and barely clinging to life. Within a week or so of the beating, her doctors had written her off. They apparently told Haleigh's court-appointed guardian, Harry Spence, that she was "virtually brain dead." Even though he had never visited her, Spence quickly went to court seeking permission to... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1569375/posts#comment Wed, 1 Feb 2006 15:29:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495560/posts . . . about adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells? Probably not.WE HAVE HEARD IT STATED SO OFTEN it has become a media mantra: Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) offer the greatest hope for cures; adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells have far less potential; the Bush administration's embryonic stem cell funding restrictions have caused America to fall behind in the great international race to develop effective ESC treatments. Baloney, baloney, and pure baloney: The problems with harnessing embryonic stem cells as treatments appear to be growing, not shrinking. For example, ESC boosters used to claim that these cells are "immortal,"... The Weekly Standard http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1495560/posts#comment Mon, 3 Oct 2005 07:14:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1368190/posts Many who support Terri Schiavo's threatened dehydration assert that removing a feeding tube from a profoundly cognitively disabled person results in a painless and gentle ending. But is this really true? After all, it would be agonizing if you or I were locked in a room for two weeks and deprived of all food and water. ======= So, why should we believe that cognitively disabled patients experience the deprivation differently simply because they receive nourishment through a feeding tube instead of by mouth? An accurate discussion of this sensitive issue requires the making of proper and nuanced distinctions about the... Catholic Education.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1368190/posts#comment Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:25:22 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071830/posts PRO-LIFE CHALLENGEBiomedical Ethics The Radical Depth and Scope of the Cloning Agenda By Wesley J. Smith Ever since embryonic stem cells were first extracted from human embryos in 1998, biotechnologists, abetted by a compliant media, have promised they would soon lead to miraculous medical cures for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. First, we were told, all that would be needed were stem cell lines extracted from "surplus" embryos "left over" from in vitro fertilization procedures, a procedure that destroys the embryo. Then, when fears were raised about auto-immune tissue rejection, we were told that what we really... National Right to Life http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071830/posts#comment Thu, 5 Feb 2004 06:17:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1303933/posts California’s Proposition 71, a $3 billion initiative to fund stem cell research, is a bad idea for a state currently in a budget crisis, says Wesley J. Smith of the Weekly Standard. Additionally, the initiative is fuzzy with few checks and balances. For one thing, the $3 billion would have to be borrowed, adding another $3 billion in interest onto its price tag. Moreover, the bill is simply vague and controversial, says Smith: Prop 71 is not merely a law to permit stem cell research, but a constitutional right to human cloning, meaning any changes to its terms and conditions... NCPA Daily Policy Digest http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1303933/posts#comment Sat, 18 Dec 2004 04:24:14 GMT