Once again, congratulations to the Swiss, an enlightened nation and I trust that other countries will take heed.

Similar to the Heartland Institute, the author appears to regard other living species as brutish and unintelligent and as a result, believes its OK to use them merely as means. Sadly, this hostility has had a long and deep influence on "civilised" nations, evidenced by their continuing barbaric treatment of other species.

However, when the author declares: "For years the radical fringe of animal rights activists has attacked violence against animals by using violence against humans", I believe he's merely confused animal activists with anti-euthanasia and pro-lifer groups.

Animal activists generally direct peaceful actions against animal abusers by disabling traps, releasing dolphins, dogs, cats and monkeys from vivisection labs etc and being a general nuisance to animal haters. Nevertheless, I do recall one incident of a person foolishly hurling a Molotov cocktail.

However, on the other hand, the pro-lifers criminally plot to save fetuses and only their God would know why since there's over 6 billion humans on the planet.

Here's a list of the actions taken by pro-lifers over THEIR 30 year reign of terror:

7 murders, including 3 doctors, 2 clinic employees, a security guard, and an escort
17 attempted murders
383 death threats
153 incidents of assault and battery
3 kidnappings
41 bombings
173 arsons
91 attempted bombings or arsons
619 bomb threats
655 bioterror attacks (all hoaxes.)
1,630 incidents of trespassing
1,264 incidents of vandalism
100 attacks with butyric acid stink bombs

These are the people to whom Mr Cook pays homage and offers his support.

As a result, I will take Mr Cook's derisive and unevolved comments on the Swiss proposal as less than credible.

This piece started out reasonably strong, before crashing and burning spectacularly in a flaming ball of condescending tripe.

I'd agree the law in regard to plants, if it is indeed based on dignity (though judging by the first post which revealed some slanting of the macaque experiment, I'm skeptical) though if for instance, the law was based on protecting the future viability of crops, then I'd see the logic.

(I'm basing this largely on my opposition to the terminator genes in some GM crops. I don't have an issue with most GMO, but were the world to undergo catastrophe someday and the bulk of our crops were unable to reproduce naturally after a few crops, merely to protect some patent, well we could be in a lot of trouble).

The piece falls down when Mr Cook reveals his biases, in stating his outright opposition to euthanasia.

Frankly, I'd say that the ultimate expression of dignity is the will to choose, and no decision is more important than your life. I'm incredibly pissed off by people who think they have the right to tell the terminally ill, or people suffering in pain, that they must live.
It's the ultimate theft of dignity, and this piece becomes nothing but conservative polemics.

It is easy to ridicule people who are trying to put in place ideals that deal with complex and values-driven matters. However, I think that the Swiss should be congratulated for trying to look at something with a fresh look. As it happens, this time it had to do with goldfish and wilflife flowers, among other things.

Nevertheless the Swiss should be respected for having tried to come to terms with the painful matter helping people who are suffering to die with dignity. By the way, the euthanasia association that I know of is not called Dignitas, it is called Exit, and it takes extreme care to ensure that the people who have made their choice are asked time and again whether they want to maintain their decision. It is neither an easy nor a comfortable choice; a close friend of my mother opted out last year after great illness and hopeless discomfort. His 'exit' left us very sad but full of compassion for the poor soul who felt he could no longer live as he was. We felt that he had died with dignity, more than he was feeling in his painful and dependent life.

It is possible that, as humans, we may have to contemplate the issues pertaining to the dignity of other species, other life forms, before coming to terms with the hoary problem of human rights and duties. If that is so, we should thank the Swiss for opening up a new path.

As I said earlier.... 'dignity'...PLANTS?

The poor vegans :)

"HARVESTING WHEAT IS MURDER"...

"REAPING CORN IS CRUEL"

"EXTRACTING HONEY IS RUTHLESS EXPLOITATION"

"CUT FLOWERS FOR MOTHERS DAY IS GENOCIDE"

ummm :) and so it goes on.

Lets hope (and for some of us pray) that it never comes to this, but looking at the 'trajectory'..... it might. Look at Peta and their whacky ideas.

TRTL.. you mentioned something interesting 'Terminator Genes' ?

err.. is that something like preventing the seeds of GM crops from being able to be resewn and grown, so you are forced to buy seed from Monsanto for each crop?

I too support the Swiss in their attempts to raise the bar on issues of animal cruelty. Good on them.

"Look at Peta and their whacky ideas."

I'd be careful, BD, you're a very black pot here!

Yep, boaz, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's essentially it in a nutshell. Monsanto has shelled out a fortune to create these crops, so they figure they're justified in tweaking it a little, so that after a crop or two, they're infertile, and farmers have to buy a new batch of seed instead of harvesting their crop.

It's the scariest element of genetically modified foods. I don't have a problem with the pesticide or herbicide resistant crops, nor do I take issue with modification for other reasons - in fact, Australian researchers are looking at how to take the drought resistance found in Sorghum, and place it in other crops. That has enormous potential for third world food crises, if we can make arid areas more productive using GMO.

The terminator genes however, scare me a great deal. If there is a catastrophe someday, and a very large portion of our crops have the terminator gene, how are we to quickly ensure a constant food supply? Plus, as much as it sounds like something from the plot of a b-grade dystopian science fiction piece, it does seem like an awful lot of power to place in the hands of one company.