Center on Human Exceptionalism

The mission of Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism is to affirm and uphold the intrinsic nature of human dignity, liberty, and equality. In resistance to a growing movement against unique human personhood, we aim to revitalize a commitment to the traditional Western view of human rights and human responsibilities — summed up by the term “human exceptionalism.” Read more

Humanize

Podcast

Clarke Forsythe on the History and Future of the Pro-Life Movement

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Wesley J. Smith
November 20, 2023
When the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutional right in Roe v. Wade in 1973, it not only throttled an important ongoing democratic debate in the country about legalizing abortion, but it tore this country’s culture apart. In the next fifty years, dedicated pro-life activists committed themselves to democratic engagement and advocacy to reverse Roe and return the struggle over the right to life to the democratic sphere. That decades-long effort bore fruit last year in the Supreme Court case of Dobbs. But that is far from the end of the story. The abortion issue continues to roil the country, with state legislatures passing dramatically different laws about the issue and voters in state initiative elections, such as in Kansas and Ohio, supporting legalization. 

Jonathan Choe on the Crisis of our City Streets

5
Tom Shakely
November 6, 2023
The homelessness and addiction catastrophes on our city streets seem intractable. Unhygienic squatter tent cities. Human waste on our sidewalks. Used needles littering our parks. Crime. Collapsing commercial districts. It’s enough to make one turn away in despair and allow areas of our once most beautiful cities to become no-go zones. But some refuse to yield. One is veteran independent journalist Jonathan Choe. Choe focuses his journalism on homelessness, drug addiction, and the mental health crisis ravaging America through hard-hitting video narratives. In this episode of Humanize, Choe will describes the horrors—and heroism—he encounters daily as he covers the homelessness beat Choe is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, covering

Henry Olsen on the Crisis in American Politics

4
Wesley J. Smith
October 23, 2023
It is no secret that American politics are in crisis. Polls show that Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives are increasingly estranged from each other, conservative red states and progressive blue states are enacting public policies that are dramatically dichotomous, and millions of people no longer trust the integrity of our electoral system. As this program is being recorded, there is no Speaker of the House of Representatives. The two leading candidates to become president in 2024—President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump—are both highly unpopular, and most Americans don’t want a rematch of 2020. How has this crisis come to be and what can be done about it? Wesley asked one of the most respected election analysts in the country to provide some

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