Human Rights for Apes, Civil Rights for Plants - but No Relief for Human Babies

With Thoughts of Sanctity of Life Week, January 18-25, 2009

Now I've seen everything. It wasn't enough that, in June of this year, Spain's Parliament decided that apes should be afforded human rights similar to homo sapiens. Yes, human rights for apes. But now in Switzerland - the country that once remained neutral on everything - their parliamentarians want to give "dignity" to plants. They even call the existence of our green leafy friends a "lifestyle".

Shades of "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Animal Farm"...meanwhile, humans are listed as a species of least concern for extinction on the latest report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

First, the Spanish government approved the "Great Ape Project", committed to giving apes the "fundamental moral and legal protections of the right to life, freedom from arbitrary deprivations of liberty, and protection from torture". Okay, I can agree with the protection from torture and I do think it's sad to see them behind bars in zoos. But I've still never seen one evolve into a man and lose all that hair.

Then, the Wall Street Journal reported in October that molecular scientists in Switzerland were faced with considering the dignity of plants when wanting to do research on wheat for certain types of fungus. Beat Keller, one of the scientists, had to put pages in his report proving why the research would not "disturb the plant's lifestyle". Based on a 1990's Swiss Constitutional amendment defending all life forms, Switzerland's Parliament asked the scientists, along with a board of theologians and geneticists, to establish the meaning of plant dignity.

Well, we already know some people do talk to their plants and even stroke them. "Plants like to be touched", some gardening advocates say. I guess we'd better get ready to see them jump up and say "Feed me!"

With this year's Sanctity of Life Week coming up, it's a good time to ponder what life we value most. Human aborted babies are also being deprived of human rights, liberty and protection from torture in the most heinous types of abortion.