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
Loony loony loony loony. The lunatics are running the asylum, and other lunatics are cheering them on. Poor little loonies, thinking that plants have “dignity”. What’s next, protecting the “dignity” of rocks, of poo?
Anyone ever see, ‘the happening’? Maybe the swiss are trying to get in good with the plants; For when they release their neurotoxins and make everyone kill themselves. Only the swiss will survive.lol
How do they eat? That is what I would like to know. Seriously.
We’re so done as a species it’s ridiculous. Are you kidding me? This is what we’re bothering ourselves with in the Western World? There’s nothing more pressing than the “dignity” of plants? We’re just done…
This is the first step forward, but you must now recognize the rights of computers, and your moral obligations towards them. NO LONGER should you be allowed to simply open their cases and mess with their insides in an undignified manner - this activity should only be performed by specialists who have sworn a hypocratic-style oath. NO LONGER should you be allowed to simply throw out an old CD ROM when it stops working - it is YOUR responsibility to repair it, no matter what the cost.
Oh, you should also respect dirt and stop treading in it.
Oddly enough, abortion on demand in the first trimester is legal in Switzerland and paid for by the state. Yet plants’ dignity is protected under law. It’s not just the clocks that are cuckoo.
No terminator genes? No restricting the ability to adapt??? Look, either completely prohibit any genetic modification, or require that it be done right, with safeguards. This loony law gets it completely wrong.
Also, you do not *have* to eat, say, fruit (i.e., plants’ babies) — you tend to do that purely for your wanton pleasure. If that’s not an affront to “dignity”, what is? Best stop eating all plants right now.
The inmates running the asylum indeed.
I think every country should follow this. I see some progress finally, towards humanity and love for living beings.
In Soviet Russia, Little Flower Behead YOU!
Isn’t “wanton destruction” what we do when we crush and mangle plants and seeds between our teeth? Is it humiliating to an artichoke to be pulled apart leaf by leaf? Is assisted pollination getting too personal with a plant’s reproduction…without their consent?!
With such common sense about ownership of firearms I thought Switzerland a mentally balanced country. Clearly I have made an incorrect conclusion. Being a resident of the People’s Republik of Kalifornia, I expect to see propagation of this mental disorder here first…even before the rest of Europe is contaminated.