ons about the rights of plants, in the way that animal experimentation raises questions about the rights of animals; nor do they raise questions about the welfare of plants. They do, however, provoke a reaction that is difficult to place within arguments about welfare, rights and justice. Some perceive GM crops as unnatural and those who disapprove of their development and use for this reason are among the strongest critics of GM crops.Others have argued that it is unethical to treat nature in an industrial fashion, not simply because of the unfortunate consequences of so doing, but because they believe it is morally wrong. Having said this, GM crops raise ethical issues about the rights and wrongs of the ways we affect the environment that are especially difficult to analyze and resolve.The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops into the environment and the food chain has become highly controversial in the United Kingdom, parts of Europe and in other parts of the world. The possibility that GM crops will form a large proportion of the plants grown by farmers in the United States and Europe within the next decade has aroused reactions ranging from outrage and unease to acceptance. By contrast, their introduction has been greeted with near-indifference by consumers in the US and Canada. The genetic modification of plants involves transferring DNA from a plant or bacterium, or even an animal, into a different plant species.Because we can increasingly identify which gene or genes determine particular characteristics, the appropriate genes can now be inserted directly into the plants we wish to modify. Although techniques required to create GM crops are recent and relatively sophisticated, genetic modification is in most respects an extension of what has been happening for ten thousand years. The primitive ancestors of almost all modern food crops are barely recognizable, for instance, originally corn wouldn't have fed a mouse m...
