Here's a quick (thank goodness) report on a group of Swiss experts who insist their fellow humans recognize that plants deserve respect and that arbitrarily "killing" plants is an immoral action.Among the sins described in the report from the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (Switzerland) was the decapitation of flowers without reason. Although commission member Bernard Baertsche, perhaps an ardent romantic, suggested that such aggression be evaluated on a case by case basis, noting "the simple pleasure of picking the petals off a daisy might suffice as a reason".
Also in the report was that the group accepted genetic engineering, arguing that this did not threaten plants' "autonomy." Whew. I'll bet they're pleased to hear that.
You can't make this stuff up, folks.
