Give Me Asparagi, or Give Me Death!

On Saturday evening, Eric Blair sent me a link to this story from The Weekly Standard (since picked up by Hot Air) detailing the latest political craze sweeping Europe: plant rights. That's right – the continent whose people are too lily-livered to stand up to the very real scourge of Islamofascism are seriously debating the notion that by the act of simply mowing a lawn, one may be committing an act of mass-genocide that would put Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot to shame. From the article:

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

The "plant community?" Are these people serious? According to the author of the article, Wesley J. Smith of the Discovery Institute, the Swiss bioethicists are indeed serious. But still, how could anyone with a functioning brain believe plants to have the same inherent moral worth as our fellow human beings." Smith writes:

Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

Precisely. A year ago I wrote a blog entry about how the moral and spiritual indecisiveness of contemporary post-Christian Europe was creating a fertile breeding ground for radical Islam (I'll re-post it later this week). Evidently, Islamic radicalism is not the only beneficiary. What can we expect in the future? Plant-rights organizations hiring bird-brained starlets to pose nude while pontificating about the horror of chewing on celery sticks?

Lest you think my example of the moral quandary of lawn mowing was a rhetorical exaggeration, the Swiss panel considered that very issue:

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer's herd--the report doesn't say). But then, while walking home, he casually "decapitates" some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral…

Eric Blair speculates that this might be a hoax, but given the proclivity of Europeans to entertain nutty ideologies and concepts, I am inclined to believe that the story is true. If so, perhaps we should ask ourselves this question: is Europe really worth saving?