Right To Choose

We've been excited about spring around here.  Normally I'd go to the nursery around Mother's Day, pick up the relatively mature garden plants I want, and plop them in the garden.  I'd also pay from $2-5 per plant.

I'm feelin' cheap this year (who isn't?), so decided to have a little forethought instead and plant my garden in the house from seeds.  I'll transplant them into the garden when they're a little bigger.

Here are my tomato plants.  But how do you know, you ask?  They sure don't look much like tomato plants.

It's true.  They don't look like tomato plants one bit yet.  They look a lot like most other plants as they sprout from the ground.  But that little one poking it's head out of the dirt?  It is a tomato plant.

And do you know what?  If I put this plant outside right now, it would die.  It's far too fragile to live through the cold nights and sunny days quite yet.  We'll have to let it grow a bit before it can live on it's own outside the safety of my home.  But still, it is a tomato plant.


Well, would you look at that...these bigger plants are starting to resemble tomato plants just a little bit!  If you've seen a mature tomato plant, you could compare leaves and conclude that this little plant is, indeed, a tomato plant.  

It can't be a tomato plant, you say?  Because it doesn't have any tomatoes on it.  It's true.  This little plant doesn't have any tomatoes yet.  In fact, it might never!  It might whither under the hot sun and die.  It might freeze one night.  It might even grow healthy and strong, and still not produce fruit.  And if it does...who knows what kind of fruit it will produce...big tomatoes?  small tomatoes?  red? orange? yellow?  

It doesn't matter though.  Regardless of it's future fruit (or lack of fruit).  It is a tomato plant right NOW.

But what if I don't WANT a tomato plant?  I'd rather it be a different kind of plant - strawberry maybe.  Actually, maybe I don't want a plant at all.  I'll have to water, weed, and otherwise care for this little plant if it's to grow healthy and strong.  Ack - responsibility.  I have better things to do.

Still.  Whether I want it to be a tomato plant or something else, doesn't change the fact: this is a tomato plant.

And even still.  Whether I want to take responsibility to care for this little plant or not, doesn't change the fact: this is a tomato plant.


Still not convinced that those are tomato plants?  Here's a good way to figure out what it is:

I took plain potting soil, added some seeds from this packet, and watered them.  A few days later, the number of little plants that sprouted up matched the number of seeds I'd put in each little plot of soil.  

Sure enough.  These are tomato plants.

They're growing.
They're maturing.
They're taking nutrients from the soil, air, water, and sun.
They're more recognizable as mature tomato plants every day.

Tomato.  Plants.

So now I have a choice.  What to do?

I may choose to nurture these little plants and to allow them to grow to their full potential.

I may choose to end their life.  I can pluck them right out of the ground, and toss them in the compost bin.

What I may NOT choose, however, is to simply rename these little plants "strawberry plants" or "weeds" or "nothing" or "inconvenient"...and expect the facts to change.  It's a tomato plant no matter what I call it or how badly I want it to be different.

I have a choice, yes.  A "Right To Choose" some might even call it.  But my choice is to end the life of this tomato plant or not.  

Nothing more (as if there could be something more), and nothing less.  

Please choose very carefully.

Kimberly  – (4/29/2009 11:37:00 AM)  

Wow, good analogy. You put into words what I have found had to articulate.

I have had the thought before...some people say it's a person, some people say it's just a fetus. I say, what difference does it make if it's a person or a fetus? It is a living creature (that is beyond dispute) and to abort takes away the opportunity for it to become what it is meant to be. No one has the right to do that. To argue over what it is called is pure rhetoric, pure rationalization. *SIGH* But what seems to obvious to me is not obvious to everyone.

Lauren  – (4/29/2009 03:36:00 PM)  

Wonderful article! About 1/4 of the way thru I thought, "Oh, I know where she's going with this." Ha ha! I love it!

Another good aspect of the issue is to know that an unborn child has its OWN DNA, not the mother's, not the father's (although it took both to make this little life), but its OWN UNIQUE DNA... HUMAN DNA, not fish, or some other creature. Some say that it's the woman's right to choose since its "part of the woman's body"... it's not. It has different, unique DNA. It has its own unique life.

Great article!!

Craig and Bethany  – (4/29/2009 04:03:00 PM)  

I heard an interview once that said if you consider a fetus less human because it is tiny, does that make big people more human than little people?

If you consider a fetus less human because it is under developed does that make people older than you more human than you?

If you consider a fetus less human because it cannot survive on its own, does that mean that people living with pace makers or folks taking insulin less human, after all they cannot self-sustain without help?

If you consider being born the line a fetus must cross to become human, does that mean that being in certain locations makes you more human than others?

Although I am a Christian and a moral person, this is not the reason I am against abortion. I am against abortion because I think that the pro-life position is TRUE:

1. Bigger people are not more human.
2. Older people are not more human.
3. Not needing medical attention does not make a person more human.
4. Being in certain locations does not make a person more human.

SOOoo the question is: Do you think it is ok to kill a person?

Great post.

Post a Comment




  © Blogger template Shush by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP