Switzerland Places Ban on the Humiliation of Plants
A new amended law in Switzerland protects the dignity of vegetation.
A law protecting the dignity of plants? Laugh if you will. I’m down on my knees in respect and awe. At last the Western World is realizing the dire importance of taking other species into account.
Recently, the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to determine the meaning of dignity when it pertains to plants.
Lo and Behold, the team published a treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” The treatise established that vegetation has innate value and that it is morally wrong to partake in activities such as the “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”
Over a decade ago, an amendment was added to the Swiss constitution in order to defend the dignity of all creatures — including vegetation — against unwanted repercussions of genetic engineering. The amendment was turned into law and is known as the Gene Technology Act. However the law itself didn’t say anything specific about plants, until recently, when the law was amended to include them.
The obvious question at hand: how does this new ruling affect the production of genetically modified organisms?
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Beat Keller is a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. Keller recently asked permission of the government to conduct a field trial of a genetically modified wheat bred with a resistance to fungus. In order to actually gain permission to go ahead with the trial, he needed to hash out the potential threats to the dignity of the wheat.
The majority of the panel agrees that genetically modified plants are ok, “as long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured.” In other words, no forced sterility and terminator genes.
And Keller did, in the end, get to plant his GMO grain.
“Where does it stop?” asks Yves Poirier, a molecular biologist at the laboratory of plant biotechnology at the University of Lausanne. “Should we now defend the dignity of microbes and viruses?”
And even though I think it’s a great law, where does it stop? How humiliated is a boiled potato? A peeled carrot? Corn turned into a lowly, tortilla chip meant for dipping?
Source: Wall Street Journal
Photo: Wikimedia under a Creative Commons Lisence
What is wrong with having respect for something? If it goes too far who does it hurt? No one. I see nothing wrong with it.
Remind me to not live in Switzerland. So they can’t eat plants, because that would be an indignation to the poor plants; surely they can’t eat animals, because that’s even more of an indignation. They can’t drink water because of the microbes living in it — must not interfere with other species’ right to exist, after all — and the same with breathing! After they all die of suffocation, dehydration, and/or starvation, perhaps some more rational people will move in.
Seriously, *down on your knees with awe*?!? I agree that we shouldn’t continue raping the planet as we have done this past hundred or so years, but talking about the “dignity” of plants doesn’t help that, nor make sense. Actually combating the problems that exist is a much better solution, than sitting around a table, sipping cappucinos, churning out ridiculous reports that only make it look like something’s being done. In fact, all these reports, and all the excess paperwork now needed for people to carry on living there in Switzerland either produce more physical paperwork (but what about the dignity of the trees!), or more digital paperwork (but what about the carbon emissions from the power plants!). Stupid, stupid, stupid.
This Hamill person is allowed in schools? Around children???
*shudder*
So will it be a suspension for kids picking dandelions? Or outright expulsion in your schools Meg?
Did you guys get a model release before posting the picture?
When an internet “journalist” includes a sentence like “I’m down on my knees in respect and awe” in the opening paragraph of her article, anything else she writes should be taken with a (BIG!) grain of salt.
So, looking at her bio (linked on this paged) we discover “Meg holds an MFA in Creative Writing and has published two books of political/environmental poetry.”
Creative writing? Political/environmental poetry? How about some journalism Meg? Your flair for the dramatic rivals even Guinnevere (see above)
The only reason why crap like this pops up every now and then is because humans don’t have to hunt and gather their food anymore, so we seem to develop ourselves some other problems like thinking whether plants can feel and whether killing a bug is a murder, vegans fall into this same category.. soon we can’t eat anything anymore because meat is murder and plants should not be killed. This is just absolutely ridiculous stuff.. don’t you people have any understanding how many plants and seeds are bred every year.. hardly we can kill them all just by decapitating them. Why don’t you go waving your biological stability flags in front of the offices of the companies who really are destroying species by transporting stuff from abroad and so on.. I mean.. god dammit, to LIKE stuff like this you must have an IQ less than a plant.
I think it’s time to hone in on the vegans as the plant-murderers they are. They intentionally focus their violence on plants, explicitly excluding animals, humans, or even the by-products thereof. They are plantist. They are anti-plant terrorists who kill and even eat plants en masse. Some even go so far as to not even kill them before they eat them, but horrifically eat them RAW!! This must be stopped! Plants deserve better!
The only actual good thing about this article is that the law bans creation of plants that cannot reproduce. This is in itself a step to the right direction away from big seed-companies for example creating wheat that cannot be sustained by the farmer by saving seeds for the next year.
What? This is the ultimate stupidest thing I have yet to hear from you tree huggers. I mean even if you have a genuine interest in saving plants and wildlife from extinction, this kind of thing is what non-conservationalists can point to and apply the label ‘ecological mumbo jumbo’ thereby hurting real issues like species protection.
Get a grip on reality here folks or you’ll end up destroying all you are working for!
I just put a dunce cap on one of my houseplants and made it sit there in front of the other plants. Then I pointed and laughed. Really hard.
Wait, is that the Swiss police at my door?
Seriously, who thinks this stuff up? Humiliation of plants? How? You can go to a forest and make fun of every plant you see, and what’s going to happen? Nothing.