Wesley Smith Receives Award

The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network is pleased to announce that Wesley J. Smith, Special Consultant to the CBC, has been honored with the 2008 ‘Great Defender of Life’ award by the Human Life Foundation.

Jennifer Lahl, National Director of the CBC recently spoke with Wesley about this honor.

Wesley said, “I believe that the cause of defending human exceptionalism– the intrinsic and equal value of all human life–is the most important moral challenge facing Western Civilization in the 21 st Century . One issue that explicitly denies human equality is assisted suicide/euthanasia, which has as its basic premise that some of our lives are so unworthy of being lived that if we want to kill ourselves, the state should permit facilitation of the suicide rather than engage in prevention. As such, it represents a profound abandonment of the weak and vulnerable, the very people most in need of support and unconditional love from their community. When we fight against assisted suicide, we promote human exceptionalism. That is why I am so humbled and honored to be named a Great Defender of Life by the Human Life Foundation in recognition of my efforts to prevent the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States and around the world.

Wesley J. Smith joins past recipients, such as Congressman Christopher Smith, Nat Hentoff, and Hadley Arkes.