- Cockmaster
- Feb 24, 2002
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Do chimps and other highly intelligent animal species deserve a large subset of human rights? Absolutely and without a doubt. If there is an argument that chimpanzees should not be held in captivity, make it on its own merits, and devise a separate category to protect them and give them legal rights. Lab experimentation on chimps is basically dead in the water in the US — and I fully agree with that choice — and that was achieved without any tenuous personhood arguments.
Seriously. Every society worth living in has some sort of law against senselessly mistreating animals, and many have tighter regulations for some of the more intelligent species. What, specifically, do these Nonhuman Rights Project people want that couldn't be handled by expanding those laws?
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Dec 7, 2014 04:26
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May 15, 2024 12:43
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- Cockmaster
- Feb 24, 2002
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Well, here's an interesting development:
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/orangutan-personhood/
quote:An orangutan named Sandra has become the first non-human animal recognized as a person in a court of law.
The Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights, an animal advocacy group, had asked Argentine courts recognize the 28-year-old great ape’s right to freedom from unjust imprisonment.
On Friday, an appeals court declared that Sandra, who is owned by the Buenos Aires Zoo, is a “non-human person” who has been wrongfully deprived of her freedom.
Sandra, who was born in German zoo and sent to Argentina two decades ago, at an age when wild orangutans are still living at their mother’s side, won’t be given complete freedom.
Having lived her entire life in captivity, Sandra likely could not survive in the wild. Instead, if the zoo does not challenge the decision within 10 working days, Sandra will be sent to a sanctuary in Brazil.
“This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories,” said lawyer Paul Buompadre, one of the activists who filed the suit, to the La Nacion newspaper.
The decision may have ramifications for other great apes. In the United States, a group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is currently seeking similar rights for four privately-owned chimpanzees in New York state.
According to the Nonhuman Rights Project, chimpanzees deserve rights—not full human rights, but at least a few basic ones—because they are so similar to humans.
They’ve so far been unsuccessful. Their latest court defeat came in early December, when a New York appeals court argued that, regardless of their intelligence or feelings, chimpanzees can’t fulfill the social obligations expected of anyone with rights.
The Argentine court, however, made no mention of social duties. Sandra is simply enough like a human person to be considered a person, they ruled.
“We intend to bring the Argentine case to the attention of the New York appellate courts immediately,” said Nonhuman Rights Project founder Steven Wise in a statement. “We believe it will assist the courts in reaching a similar conclusion for our chimpanzee plaintiffs.”
There's a link to a Google Translate of a local news site. It looks like they may be offering a bit more detail on the rationale behind the ruling, but the machine translation makes it kind of challenging to understand.
And is there actually any possibility of this ruling affecting US court cases on the matter?
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Dec 24, 2014 03:50
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Dec 7, 2014 04:26
