Via the Daily Mail of the UK comes a touching story of environmental consciousness so great that it will sacrifice the lives of others for the sake of the planet:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers – and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni – who works for an environmental charity – “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

Even in a country in the grips of socialized medicine, people like Toni always seem to get their way. But she had a good reason, after all:

“Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,” says Toni, 35.

“Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

Do you suppose it ever occurs to people like Toni that she uses food, water, land, fossil fuels, and trees, and that she produces rubbish (other than her ideology, of course), pollution, greenhouse gases, and contributes to the problem of over-population? Does it ever occur to Toni that, as an adult, she contributes far more to planetary degradation than an infant would, and that the really noble sacrifice to make to further the cause of Mother Earth’s survival would have been for her to have her child and then kill herself? Or maybe she should have just killed herself while she was pregnant and positively reduced the amount of garbage she would produce in the course of a lifetime?

Just kidding, of course. Toni’s life is sacred as well as the child she sacrificed to Gaia. I certainly wouldn’t want her to do anything to harm herself. But she might think about cutting down on the polluting travel she and her husband indulge in:

“I’ve never doubted that I made the right decision. Ed and I married in September 2002, and have a much nicer lifestyle as a result of not having children.

“We love walking and hiking, and we often go away for weekends.

“Every year, we also take a nice holiday – we’ve just come back from South Africa.

“We feel we can have one long-haul flight a year, as we are vegan and childless, thereby greatly reducing our carbon footprint and combating over-population.

“My only frustration is that other people are unable to accept my decision.”

Maybe that’s because they listen to you and realize that you’re the most selfish woman on the planet. She doesn’t eat meat and has killed an unborn child, so that means she can give herself permission to get on one of the most polluting forms of transportation known to man. Heaven forbid she give life to another being who has just as much right to muck up the planet as she does. But don’t you dare get in the way of her taking that jet so she can bop around South Africa or wherever the environmentally conscious are hobnobbing this year.

There’s another nominee for the Monty Python Memorial Twit of the Year in the same article, but I don’t think my stomach can take it. Feel free if you have a stronger tolerance for idiocy than I do.

(Via Hot Air and Weasel Zippers.)