ethics

Why We Make Films

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An article this week in The Guardian’s G2 takes Olympic diver Tom Daley to task over his use of a surrogate mother. Specifically, he seems unaware that there is an ethical dimension to surrogacy. It’s not clear how much consideration Daley and Black have given the issue [of surrogacy]. In an interview on the Attitude […]

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This Week in Bioethics #99

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To mark the 99th issue of This Week in Bioethics I decided to make a video version to accompany the written version. Take a few minutes to watch it and let us know what you think. 1. Surrogacy Legislation Debate in New Jersey A bill that would legalize commercial surrogacy in New Jersey was advanced […]

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Ethics and Burnout

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The New England Journal of Medicine today published a brief piece examining burnout among healthcare providers. Certainly, this is a problem both for patients as well as for healthcare providers who of course require appropriate support in their jobs as well as opportunities for rest and renewal. What struck me in particular about the article […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Can You Imagine That Anonymous Sperm and Egg “Donation” are a Problem? CBS’s Sunday Morning program this week ran an item on “The Flourishing Business of Building Family Trees,” highlighting widespread interest in genealogy and the businesses that are helping people in their searches. The report is bookended by the moving story of 55 […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Science in Secret The mission of the CBC is to educate and inform on ethical issues related to healthcare, biomedical research, and biotechnology, so it was very disturbing to read that scientists attending “a meeting to talk about research into synthesizing a human genome were allegedly given a broad-gag order prohibiting them from even […]

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Ball of Confusion or Ball of Disorder?

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Reading about one hand Jason makes me think of the old 1970s Temptations song, “Ball of Confusion,” which was written about the state of the world during a difficult time of war, protest, and confusion. In an article titled, “Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies,” we […]

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Top Ten Posts (#1) #TBT

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We’ve arrived at the top of the list on our #TBT (Throw Back Thursday) countdown of the top ten all time most popular posts here at CBC-Network.org. The number one entry is Jennifer Lahl’s review of the film My Sister’s Keeper, titled “My Sister’s Savior,” published in July 2009. As she mentions in the review, […]

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Erase Painful Memories, Don’t Worry Be Happy

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We are becoming a neurotic suffering-phobic society. We want–nay, increasingly demand, NO SUFFERING!–as distinguished from mitigating or lightening others’ load by “suffering with,” which is the root meaning of “compassion.” As I have written elsewhere at more length, our flight from pain is driving us to increasingly extreme behaviors and distorted policies. Now, scientists may have found […]

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What “Human Exceptionalism” Means

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Kathryn Jean Lopez interviewed me about my new ebook, The War on Humans. Those interested can read it for themselves. But I want to quote one small section because I am so often asked about what I mean by the term human exceptionalism. From “Losing Human Dignity:” LOPEZ: How do you define “human exceptionalism”? SMITH: […]

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Pushing Multi-Hospital Death Panels

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The medical/legal intelligentsia continues to promote empowering committees of “experts” to rule on which patients can receive wanted life-extending treatment and which should be refused based on “quality of life” and financial considerations. Now an article by Thaddeus Mason Pope in the New York Law School Law Review urges the creation of multi-institutional ethics committees to make […]

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Francis Collins’ Big Think Big Cop Out

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Francis Collins has an opinion piece out over at Big Think asserting that he doesn’t want either “science” or “religion” to prevail over the other because “we need both kinds of truth.” He’ll get no argument from me there. But the piece, which raises one of the central issues of our time, is disappointing. Rather […]

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Science Not Way to All Truth

There is a difference between “science” and “scientism.” Science is a very powerful method of gaining and applying knowledge. In this sense, science per se is amoral, and while it has a large domain, it is not the end all and be all. It can tell us truth (small t). But it can’t determine Truth […]

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Obama’s Ethically Challenged “Bioeconomy Blueprint”

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC Central Control has released the “National Bioeconomy Blueprint” that outlines how the sector can transform our struggling economy into soaring prosperity, and how the government-business partnership will make that happen. Perhaps, but why do I keep seeing visions of the public money vacuum Solyndra dancing […]

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All +50 Ordered to Take Statins?

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC We are individuals, not statistics. But don’t tell that to the healthcare technocrats, who are now strongly urging that the NHS give all people over 50 prescribed statin drugs to lower the risk of heart attack — even people who don’t have any apparent need […]

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Peter Singer Has No Right to Judge Anyone’s Ethics

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC When I read that Peter Singer was going to sit in judgment of the ethics of meat eaters for the ridiculous “The Ethicist” feature of the NYT Magazine, I thought that it figures. I have seen the mainstream media engage in far too much airbrushing […]

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Bioethicists Don’t Have “The Answers” To Life’s Problems

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC So, which is it? Is ” mainstream bioethics” a “come let us reason together” learned discourse in which respected colleagues explore differing views and ethical outlooks, as some in the movement suggest? Or, is it actually, as I opined in Culture of Death: The Assault […]

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Drug Companies Should Be Stopped From Outsourcing Drug Testing Ethics

By Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC The human body and its constitutent parts are fast becoming among the world’s most valuable “natural resources.” Indeed, ounce for ounce, human eggs are probably the most expensive (now) commodity in the world. Because human bodies are so valuable, biological colonialism is becoming a growing […]

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