Wesley J. Smith (born 1949) is an American lawyer and author, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism, a politically conservative, non-profit think tank. He is also a consultant for the Patients Rights Council.[1] Smith is known for his criticism of animal rights, environmentalism, assisted suicide and utilitarian bioethics. He is also the host of the Humanize podcast.
Smith practiced law in the San Fernando Valley from 1976–1985, at which time he left law practice to pursue other interests, particularly as a public policy advocate. His first book in 1987 was The Lawyer Book: A Nuts and Bolts Guide to Client Survival, introduced by consumer advocate Ralph Nader beginning a collaboration between the two men. Smith is a prolific author and a frequent contributor to National Review[15] and The Weekly Standard.[16] He closely followed the Terri Schiavo case in 2005, and wrote frequently on the topic.[17]
He opposes policies allowing for assisted suicide, euthanasia, human cloning, and granting human style "rights" to animals," making a clear distinction between animal rights and animal welfare. He is also a noted critic of mainstream views in bioethics, human cloning research, radical environmentalism and of what he calls the radical animal liberation movement,[18] which he worries exhibits "anti-humanism".[19] His book Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America was named Best Health Book of the Year at the 2001 Independent Publishers Book Awards.[20]
Smith's 2010 book A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy is an anti-animal rights work which defends factory farming and human exceptionalism.[21] Smith is one of the world's foremost apologists of "human exceptionalism," which he defends from a secular perspective.
Smith is a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows, having appeared on national programs such as Good Morning America and Nightline, as well as internationally on BBCRadio 4. He has testified as an expert witness in front of federal and state legislative committees,[22] and is an international public speaker, appearing throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and many countries in Europe.
In a 2001 essay, physician Matthew K. Wynia and attorney Arthur Derse accused Smith of selectively using evidence to create a false impression that bioethics is a monolithic field.[23] They argued that Smith was "prepared to bend the truth to make a point, turn a stomach, and potentially radicalize a reader."[23] Smith rebutted these criticisms, stating in part, "Wynia and Derse assert that I claim bioethics is a monolith. That is not what I write. What I do believe is that bioethics has, generally, crystallized into an orthodoxy, perhaps even an ideology. I acknowledge that disagreements certainly exist within the field. But I view them, with some exceptions, as the arguing of people who agree on fundamentals but disagree on details—sort of like Catholics bickering with Baptists."[24]
Sociologist John Sorenson has negatively reviewed Smith's book A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy as a "misleading, bad-faith compendium of anti-animal rights
propaganda, based on a single idea: human exceptionalism".[21] Sorenson criticized Smith for ignoring the negative environmental effects of factory farming including habitat destruction and loss of biodiversity from deforestation.[21] Philosopher Angus Taylor noted that Smith has "little familiarity with the large range of literature on the moral status of animals".[25]
^Source: International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, See, Amicus Brief of the International Anti Euthanasia Task Force before the Supreme Court of the United States, Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997).
^For example, see New York Post, "Slanting the Science," June 22, 2001.
^For full list and URLs of opinion columns since June 2002, see "Articles Archives" at [1].
^Wesley J. Smith (April 26, 2008). "Peter Singer Cleans Up: Pushing Death Pays". wesleyjsmith.com. Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and the Importance of Being Human. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
^Wesley J. Smith (July 1, 2008). "It Pays to be a Eugenicist". wesleyjsmith.com. Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and the Importance of Being Human. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
^Wesley J. Smith (June 28, 2007). "Pushing for Assisted Suicide on Demand". wesleyjsmith.com. Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and the Importance of Being Human. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
^Wesley J. Smith (March 20, 2009). "Hubris and "Endarkenment" in Science Editorial". wesleyjsmith.com. Secondhand Smoke: Your 24/7 Seminar on Bioethics and the Importance of Being Human. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
^Blinded by Science, National Review, June 16, 2003
^For example, see National Review, "Better Dead Than Fed?" June 27, 1994.
