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Lawsuits Seek To Turn Chimpanzees Into Legal Persons
sciencehabit writes "This morning, an animal rights group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a lawsuit in a New York court in an attempt to get a judge to declare that chimpanzees are legal persons and should be freed from captivity. The suit is the first of three to be filed in three New York counties this week. They target two research chimps at Stony Brook University and two chimps on private property, and are the opening salvo in a coordinated effort to grant 'legal personhood' to a variety of animals across the United States. If NhRP is successful in New York, it would upend millennia of law defining animals as property and could set off a 'chain reaction' that could bleed over to other jurisdictions, says Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and a prominent critic of animal rights. 'But if they lose it could be a giant step backward for the movement. They're playing with fire.'"
Chimps are no more legal persons than corporations are. Oh wait...
...if such a thing passes, am I the only one who sees a potential push for marriage laws to be adapted similarly?
Before you freak out totally, I'm not necessarily referring to anything involving humans in the mix, but think of such things as racehorse/purebred animal breeding and etc.
Could become one hell of a can of worms... (oh, wait, that brings up another thought - are worms eventually getting rights too?)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
...I read "Lawsuits Seeks To Turn Lawyers into Chimpanzees".
Humans are used as experimental subjects too and are by all accounts quite tasty.
If freed, chimpanzees would be unable to follow basic laws and would likely need to be locked up in imprisonment anyway.
Where exactly do they plan on releasing these chimps at? NYC? These animals likely cannot be returned to the wild and would likely face certain death in the wilderness, or the urban jungle for that matter....
This decision will also be used precedence by the machines to decide how humans should be treated post-singularity. Choose wisely.
Jerry was a race car driver.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Okay, maybe he was just a... dragon.
But he was still TROGDOR!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Nope. Chimps aren't human, and don't deserve civil rights. Especially not Second Amendment rights. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxqIITtTtU )
But seriously, that doesn't mean we're free to treat 'em badly. We tend to draw a black-and-white distinction between persons and nonpersons. If it's a nonperson, we can do whatever we want with it, torture, butchery, it's all good. But it's not that simple. Living things exist on a spectrum of intelligence and "person-ness", from bacteria to plants to fish to cats to chimpanzees (and from fertilized egg to full-term fetus, if you want to go there). Our morality needs to reflect that.
So no, chimps don't get rights. But they should get the respect they're due as almost-persons.
Step 1: declare chimps person and demand they be released
Step 2: arrest now-homeless person-chimps for trespassing
Step 3: make incarcerated person-chimps do whatever they were doing before as prison labor
As humans, I believe we have a responsibility to treat creatures with a humane stewardship but this lawsuit is pushing an agenda other than humane stewardship. This is the exact kind of thing which makes people roll their eyes every time a vegetarian speaks up about the living conditions of feed-lot beef, or the destruction of bottom trawling and bycatch.
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That's wrong. Chimps, for example, are a different species; chimps and humans can't have offspring. Their brains are obviously quite different. They are also vicious and aggressive animals.
US laws are based on Enlightenment philosophy, not religion. As such, they are a mix of social contract, classical liberalism, and human rights. Enlightenment philosophers generally recognized that animals could suffer and that humans had some moral responsibility towards them, but did not generally recognize them as persons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights#John_Locke.2C_Immanuel_Kant
Millions of people vote who don't pay income taxes. I guess these apes will probably be voting for Democrats (aka GimmeDats) just like those millions.
Hate to break it to you bub, but Red states on the whole take more government money and pay less in taxes.
Hey, corporations are people. Extending that to chimps isn't too far a stretch.
> humans can live with without eating meat.
They also tend to do poorly at it since we aren't actual herbivores.
You are not a cow, no matter how much you want to be one.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hey, corporations are people. Extending that to chimps isn't too far a stretch.
How do we know the chimps want to be brought down to that level?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Yes, but sadly their votes would only be counted as 3/5 of a human citizen's :(
Corrected for historical accuracy.
Lots of people claim that there are studies showing that plants "cry out in pain", though not surprisingly no one ever seems to have a link to a reputable study to go with that claim.
Here's a more thorough response than I'm willing to take the time to type.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
...there is hope for me, a code monkey !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
" kill them in a humane way"
No. We kill them in a *cheap* way. Humane too, providing it doesn't conflict with the 'cheap' part. There is huge commercial pressure to make meat (and related products) as cheap as possible - that's why battery hens and the feedlot were invented.
The standard method of disposal for live male chicks (A byproduct of egg manufacture - half the chicks are useless as egg-layers) is to drop them live into a meat grinder. Why do this? Is it because factory owners are sadists? No, it's simply because that's the cheapest way to dispose of them. It would just cost too much to have a human painlessly execute each one, or even to waste factory space and maintenance costs on an elaborate nitrogen chamber setup. Dropping them live into the grinder is the most cost-effective means. Those feeling guilty can at least be satisfied that their pain, though doubtless severe, will also be brief.
Religious slaughter excepted. That's a bit of an odd case, as the rituals were set in stone millenia ago and resist alteration.
Judging by some of what I've seen in the local Walmart, some people are closer than others...
There is a much better argument that a fetus is a person and deserves protection under the law but the anti-abortion types haven't managed to get that idea recognized by the courts or enacted as law through the ballot box. I don't agree with their argument or what the anti-abortion types are trying to do by making it but I can still see some validity to their argument. Given that the courts have considered whether a fetus is a person from the moment of conception and said "no", I don't see the courts granting "personhood" to chimpanzees.
O/T: This does give rise to an amusing situation. The folks who push "personhood" for a fetus would probably vehemently oppose granting the same designation to a chimpanzee (fundamentalists see man as on a whole different level than other animals). Likewise, the people pushing personhood for chimps would be some of the more liberal types and would probably be very "pro-choice".
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
It's well documented that some animals have the mental capacity of a typical 3 year old human child. (See Alex the african grey parrot, Koko the gorilla, etc.)
Not to mention dogs, i.e. Chaser the border collie who's been taught over 1000 words.
(mute volume) http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/world-smartest-dog-nova-special-shows-border-collie/story?id=12875750
Since we're going to kill to eat, then why not opt for the "mmm, tasty" end of the spectrum?
Apparently, eating should involve suffering. Which just goes to show, my mom was way ahead of her time.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Of course, they'd have to be represented pro-bono. Bo.
"Heinlein saw this coming in 1947."
No, he didn't.
Heinlein invisaged chimpanzees genetically enhanced to be more intelligent and more like humans.
Chimpanzees are not human. They don't think like humans, they don't behave like humans, they aren't physically built like humans.
Of all these things, probably the most important is that they don't think like humans. At all. Chimpanzees do not understand non-verbal communications even as much as dogs do. They're just not people.
> They are treated as legal persons for very good reasons that go back hundreds of years for certain purpose.
Total nonsense. Corporations became legal persons OVER time based on greed TO LIMIT LIABILITY. Corporations want all the benefits and do everything in their power to avoid having to pay for them.
Date Decision, Legal Right Affirmed
1889 "Minneapolis and St. L. R. Co. v. Beckwith", Right for judicial review on state legislation
1893 "Noble v. Union River Logging R. Col", Right for judicial review for rights infringement by federal legislation
1906 "Hale v. Henkel", Protection "against unreasonable searches and seizures (4th)
1908 "Armour Packing C. v. United States", Right to trial by jury (6th)
1922 "Pennsylvania Coal Co. V. Mahon", Right to compensation for government takings
1962 "Fong Foo v. United States", Right to freedom from double jeopardy (5th)
1970 "Ross v. Bernhard", Right to trial by jury in civil case (7th)
1976 "Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Consumer Council)", Right to free speech for purely commercial speech (1st)
1978 "First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti", Right to corporate political speech (1st)
1986 "Pacific Gas and Electric Company v. Public Utility Commn of California", Right against coerced speech (1st)
Reference:
* A Short History of the Corporation
http://cnx.org/content/m17314/latest/
Also see:
http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=314
Specifically, "The Corporation complete film transcript (PDF)"
http://hellocoolworld.com/files/TheCorporation/Transcript_finalpt1%20copy.pdf
http://hellocoolworld.com/files/TheCorporation/Transcript_finalpt2%20copy.pdf
When the U.S. Constitution was ratified it contained a clause which counted slaves as 3/5ths of a person for purposes of allocating representatives in the House of Representatives. This was a hard fought compromise because the slave owners wanted the slaves to count as a full person and the proto-abolitionists did not want slaves counted at all (since the political power which flowed from them being counted would be exercised by the slave-owners).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
To add to my previous point ...
First, a corporation is effectively a psychopath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5hEiANG4Uk
Secondly, Corporations pay no death tax (estate tax) because corporations NEVER die. That fact right there is a HUGE problem. It slowly strips the wealth (power) out of individuals and consolidates it -- that is total anathema to the original intent of State and Federal separation and balance of power.
Thirdly, Corporations at one time were PROHIBITED from owning another corporations; again to PREVENT consolidation of power.
Fourth, Corporations can effectively print their own currency via stocks.
Fifth, the value of a Company's stock is IMAGINARY worth. The fact that a company's value can fluctuate wildly over night means the value is a total sham.
Sixth, quoting http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/157829.shtml
--
The best thing about America? Capitalism! The worst thing about America? Capitalism!
So chimpanzee rampages through the streets of Manhattan killing some civilians, is put on trial (being a person and all) and is found to be mentally incompetent and placed in a special home with bars for the rest of its life. Or otherwise is found competent to stand trial and is still placed behind bars. Meanwhile a "back to Africa for chimpanzees" is started except that the law prohibits deporting persons born in the US. Later the Supreme Court rules that chimpanzee poop thrown at the president was a legitimate form of free speech, which becomes a milestone in the decline of civilization.
Chimpanzees are not human. They don't think like humans, they don't behave like humans, they aren't physically built like humans. Of all these things, probably the most important is that they don't think like humans.
The point is not whether chimps are human; it's whether they are persons.
Well, perhaps in the US, but in Europe we do have standards and they do add considerable cost. When the standards are not met the meat cannot legally be sold here. Dropping live chickens into a meat grinder is definitely illegal here. Animal welfare in the US seems to be quite poor in comparison.
Religious slaughter is illegal in some EU countries, but unfortunately legal in the UK.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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