Are We Defining A Brave New Future Where All Human Life Is Not Protected?

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith takes a look at "personhood theory" advocated by such as Princeton University's Peter Singer. Listen in and learn more about the threat to the sanctity of life ethic as the fundamental value of our social order. As Smith says, "The time has come to pay attention. If human life is knocked off the pedestal, universal human rights will be impossible to sustain."

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Discovery Institute senior fellow in human rights and bioethics Wesley J. Smith takes a look at what's behind the radical euthanasia movement. According to Smith, "Support for euthanasia can be seen as merely a symptom of the deeper illness of nihilism, a social cancer that has been gnawing steadily away at us for more than a century." How do we stem this terrible tide? By "embracing human exceptionalism and its corollary that each and every one of us matters -- no matter what." Listen in and hear the charge for true compassion in our society.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith explains how the push for granting rights to nature endangers human exceptionalism. According to Smith, “It can’t happen here” denial isn’t going to stop those committed to the cause from pushing these agendas into our body politic and laws. To the contrary, it helps them because people don’t mobilize to resist. Click here to read more.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith examines the need for conscience clauses to protect medical professionals. Today, physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals whose moral beliefs prevent them from participating in legal but ethically controversial acts such as abortion and physician-assisted suicide, find themselves under increasing pressure to either violate their consciences or be driven out of their careers. Listen in as Wesley J. Smith explains why the life you save by supporting conscience clauses could be your own. Click here to read more about conscience clauses.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley J. Smith examines the transhumanism of Slate's William Saletan. Is it possible to resist the bleak future Saletan paints? Listen in and find out.

On this episode of What It Means To Be Human, Wesley J. Smith looks at animal standing, which "would both undermine the status of animals as property and elevate them with the force of law toward legal personhood. On an existential level, the perceived exceptional importance of human life would suffer a staggering body blow by erasing one of the clear legal boundaries that distinguishes people from animals." For more information, visit Wesley's blog, Secondhand Smoke.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith examines the subversive movement within psychiatry, psychology, and social work which holds that only “irrational” suicides should be prevented -- while other suicides should be "validated" by mental health professionals. Listen in to hear the chilling details, and read more about the articles here.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, bioethicist Wesley J. Smith examines the biological colonialism that has come in the wake of the devaluation of human life. With the rejection of human exceptionalism, we now have the commoditization and exploitation of the body parts and functions of the poor, effectively treating human beings as mere natural resources to be exploited and/or harvested. Listen in and learn what it means to be human -- and why it's so important. For more information, read Wesley's article here.

An ethics panel in Switzerland is considering granting rights to … plants. On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, Wesley Smith, Discovery Institute senior fellow in human rights and bioethics, looks at how Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns.

On this episode of What It Means to Be Human, bioethicist Wesley Smith looks at the judicial activism that has overturned a Montana state law banning assisted suicide. Listen in as Smith explains how this case is part of a slow motion coup de culture, a steady drive to topple the social order rooted in Judeo-Christian/humanistic moral philosophy and replace it with a dramatically different value system founded in utilitarianism, hedonism, and radical environmentalism.