Chimpanzee "Personhood" Lawsuits Fail In New York Courts

sciencehabit writes "Three lawsuits filed last week that attempted to achieve 'legal personhood' for four chimpanzees living in New York have been struck down. The suits, brought by the animal rights group the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), targeted two chimps on private property and two in a research lab at Stony Brook University in New York. NhRP says it will now appeal each lawsuit to a higher court, and that it will continue its campaign to grant chimpanzees, dolphins, and other cognitively advanced animals legal personhood nationwide."

Comments

Re:The Lawyers for NhRP are racists

[Dcnjoe60]

To bad you got modded down as a troll because actually you are more or less correct - they are comparing chimp captivity to slavery. From a summary about the case:

n each case, NhRP is petitioning judges with a writ of habeas corpus, which allows a person being held captive to have a say in court. In a famous 1772 case, an English judge allowed such a writ for a black slave named James Somerset, tacitly acknowledging that he was a person—not a piece of property—and subsequently freed him. The case helped spark the eventual abolition of slavery in England and the United States. Wise is hoping for something similar for the captive chimps.

The irony is that their proposed solution, if they win is to house the chimps in a preserve in Florida. The claim it would be like the Native American reservations. However, there people are free to come and go, but the chimps would not have that right, so effectively, they would still be captives. They would just have different masters/caretakers.

I guess for the NhRP different classes of persons are entitled to different rights. Then again, that is pretty much what slave owners thought, too.

Re:The Lawyers for NhRP are racists

[mcgrew]

Exactly, which is why I posted a link to Heinlein's Jerry Was A Man in the first slashdot story about this. Heinlein, like these lawyers, was a racist (although in his defense, everyone was in 1947).

Re:so how will they earn a living

[dryeo]

Orangutans are smarter. A zoo keeper once described the differences between the great apes. If you give a screwdriver to a gorilla, it jumps back in fear and will then tentatively take the screwdriver and try to eat it. A chimp will take it and try to use it for everything except unscrewing things. An Orangutan will take it, act stupid and hide it and when no-one is looking, use it to disassemble the cage.
Actually they aren't that smart. One who had figured out how to open his cage using a piece of wire, some cardboard and brute strength was smart enough to hide his actions from the zoo keeper but didn't stop to think that the intern working by the door would tell on him.
Google orangutan zoo escapes for examples.