Albert Mohler: When Plants Have Rights . . . An Idea Gone to Seed

Friday, October 10, 2008

Worldviews are constantly in motion. New issues arise and new questions present themselves. In one sense, worldviews operate as idea factories, as primary ideas work themselves out into related ideas. The basic framework of convictions that lies at the heart of a worldview always works outward toward implications of those key convictions.

Keep that in mind when you read of developments in Switzerland. As previously reported, Switzerland amended its constitution to require that "the dignity of creation" must be taken into account "when handling animals, plants, and other organisms." In order to meet this constitutional provision, the Swiss government commissioned the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and asked that body to produce guidelines. The result was a report that is among the most radical ever adopted by any government. "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants" is nothing less than clear evidence of what happens when the Christian worldview is completely eclipsed by secular thought. the rest image