Right To Choose
>> Wednesday, April 29, 2009 –
Politics
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.
Read more...
