Is the Drug Enforcement Administration scaring doctors away from treating pain aggressively? Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith discusses recent reports on the DEA’s aggressive pursuit of doctors who subscribe pain medication for chronic pain sufferers. The perception by doctors that the DEA is “gunning” for those who may over prescribe, which according to Smith can result in a lamentable deterence to the proper alleviation of pain. Legislation to help ease this tension and provide a solution has been caught up in the debata over assisted suicide with supporters of doctor assisted suicide warning that such legislation threatens Oregon’s assited suicide regime.

On this episode of Brave New Bioethics, Wesley Smith takes a look at the disturbing trend toward embryo quality control. After embryo-screening was recently employed to prevent a child from being born who might contract adult-onset cancer, Wesley asks if this eugenic attitude might continue to the point that we permit no babies to be born at all.

On this episode of BNB Wesley Smith looks at last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on partial birth abortion. Smith examines the majority decision, written by Justice Kennedy, and notes that it an assertion that seems to be a stronger affirmation of the moral value of nascent human life than has heretofore found its way into most Supreme Court jurisprudence.

On this episode of Brave New Bioethics senior fellow Wesley J. Smith explains how a new bill introduced in the US Senate actually authorizing human cloning can yet be called a ban on cloning.

New congressional legislation that explicitly legalizes human cloning and also authorizes researchers to pay women to harvest their eggs for cloning research. The bill has been named by it’s sponsors, Senators Hatch and Feinstein, the Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Protection Act. Smith shows how they use definition sleight of hand to get away with it.

On this episode of Brave New Bioethics, CSC senior fellow Wesley J. Smith looks at the newly release statement from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine on the issue of physician assisted suicide in which they assume a position of neutrality. According to Smith their new position is both a cowardly act and a backdoor repudiation of a long established philosophy of hospice care in respecting each patient's life. Such terminal non-judgementalism is an abandonment of the hospice organization's professed goal of promoting proper hospice care and worse is an abandonment of patients whose lives depend on doctors acting to relieve their suffering while abiding by the hypocratic oath.

On this episode of Brave New Bioethics, Wesley J. Smith takes a look at how an anti-human agenda like that of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is capable of causing great human harm. In the story of Dr. Edward Taub, we find that animal rights liberationists who literally believe that animals are equal to human beings are a threat to scientific research and the health and wellness of many.

There is no question that Chinese transplant centers sell their wares. China has admitted to selling the organs of executed prisoners. The question is whether some of these organs come from Falun Gong dissedents executed for heterodox religious beliefs that the Chinese government disagrees with, as discussed in a report by human rights attorneys titled Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. A recent update to the report shows that the Chinese military may be running these organ transplant centers as a means of generating much needed revenue.

There is a new religion spreading across the globe. It is called transhumanism. Transhumanists believe that natural humans aren’t good enough, smart enough, strong enough, athletic enough, beautiful enough, or genetically diverse enough. They reject the very idea of normal, indeed, of there being any virtue at all in remaining fully human. Let's look at what exactly transhumanists want, and what the trouble is with transhumanism.

I am often asked how I became an anti euthanasia activist. Like most people on both sides of the issue, it began with a personal experience.

Usually after a suicide, those who were close to the deceased person wonder why, grieve, and finally go on with their lives. But I had a queasy feeling that there was more to Frances death than appeared on the surface. It was as if she had somehow been encouraged to pursue death. Yet, I knew her friends had all tried to persuade her to embrace life. I decided to investigate.

Visit my blog at www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/.

I have had several requests to comment on the story of the cognitively disabled girl named Ashley, whose parents subjected her to hormone treatments and invasive surgeries (hysterectomy, mastectomy) to keep her "small." The point of these "treatments" was to ensure that by remaining at about 75 pounds, Ashley's care could still be provided by her parents. I certainly don't question the parents' motive. They thought this was the best way to continue to be able to care for their daughter at home. Still, the core questions as I see them, are whether these interventions supported Ashley's intrinsic worth and whether they were therapeutic and therefore ethical for a doctor to perform.

The answer to both questions, I think, is no. The motive was love, I agree. But, in the end, I think it was wrong.