Lawyer and award-winning author, Wesley J. Smith, is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism. He is also a consultant to the Patients Rights Council. In May 2004, because of his work in bioethics, Smith was named one of the nation's premier expert thinkers in bioengineering by the National Journal. In 2008, the Human Life Foundation named him a Great Defender of Life for his work against assisted suicide and euthanasia, work for which he also received the Legatus Cardinal John J. O'Connor Award for 2014. Smith left the full time practice of law in 1985 to pursue a career in writing and public advocacy. He is the author or coauthor of thirteen books. His Human Exceptionalism blog, hosted by National Review Online, is one of the premier blogs dealing with human life and dignity. Smith's book Forced Exit: Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide and the New Duty to Die, a broad-based criticism of the assisted suicide/euthanasia movement has become a classic in anti-euthanasia advocacy and is now in its third edition, published by Encounter Books in 2006. Smith's Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, a warning about the dangers of the modern bioethics movement, was named one of the Ten Outstanding Books of the Year and Best Health Book of the Year for 2001 (Independent Publisher Book Awards).