Apr 20 2008
It was bound to happen
Remember how you used to cavalierly ignore those “Keep of the Grass Signs” in your un-enlightened youth?
Well, you brutal, uncaring, beast.
For it has finally been announced—from Europe, naturally, from the Swiss government-appointed Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology—that plants have feelings too.
They have authoritatively stated that “interfering with plants without a valid reason as ‘morally inadmissible.’” This means the next time you carve you and your sweetheart’s name into a tree can lead to a nice, long jail sentence. (If the famed Swiss police ever catch you, that is.)
The ethics committee did grudgingly admit—for now—that “all action involving plants for the preservation of the human race was morally justified.” Meaning, I suppose, that it’s still OK to eat them. I probably don’t need to explain to you the fix we’d be in if we could not. But there is only direction for the Enlightened to go, so stay tuned for an announcement banning the use of “higher” plants, such as maybe corn and tomatoes, for use in the “preservation of the human race.”
The august Swiss body has also found that “genetic modification of a plant did not contradict the idea of its ‘dignity’.” Yes, I can see how a kumquat would not find it an affront to be genetically probed. Until, that is, the kumquat learns how easily this sort of thing can sully one’s reputation. It’s only matter of time before a lawyer figures this out and brings a case to Brussels.
Just keep all this in mind, think about what you are doing—raise your awareness!—next time you are at the salad bar.
