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NY Judge Rules Research Chimps Are Not 'Legal Persons'
sciencehabit writes: A state judge in New York has dealt the latest blow to an animal rights group's attempt to have chimpanzees declared 'legal persons.' In a decision handed down this morning, New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe ruled that two research chimps at Stony Brook University are not covered by a writ of habeas corpus, which typically allows human prisoners to challenge their detention. The Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the lawsuit in an attempt to free the primates, has vowed to appeal.
We posted news last year about an earlier case (mentioned in the article) brought by the same group, which also ended in defeat.
unless they're standing in the same line as the dead people at the polls.
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If they are not legal persons, that makes them illegal persons. Right?
PlanetVulkan.com
This might just be the smartest most sensible judge In the country!!
next sea kitties. Where will it end?
And what a fine use of taxpayer resources.
If they had been declared legal persons, you know someone would've tried to marry one.
what about politician chimps?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Next would have been ruling separate but equal unconstitutional and the next thing you know after someone gets their ass and face chewed off some cop offs an unarmed chimp Detroit goes up in flames.
Ok, i appologize, i didn't realize how racist that sounded. Of course, Donald Trump is more closely related to an Orangutan than a Chimp...
More like Orangeandtan then an Orangutan.
This creates a Constitutional crisis. After all, it won't be easy to replace three whole branches of government. But at least their evil plans to force all cable and broadcast networks to air The Banana Channel, all day, every day won't come to fruition.
Incorporate!
Sorry to hear that, Timothy and crew. I assume if chimps didn't make the cut, there's no hope at all for /. editors.
See subject.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
These guys are weaving a judicial tapestry that ensures that even if society as a whole were to move a bit in their direction over time, there will be so much precedent against them that it'll take decades longer to accomplish their goals.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Humans have a right to life. If I see someone getting attacked on the street by a human predator I have the right to act in defense of the person being attacked up to and including killing the attacker. If we give animals the same rights then logically anyone can act in defense of prey animals by killing predatory animals. This would lead to ecological disaster. Also the logical conclusion would be that the dentist that killed that lion would be a hero for all of the prey animal lives he saved.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Listen, I'm what I consider to be a pretty good, card-carrying tree-hugger who is also an omnivore, and I have supported racial, sexual and marriage equality for as long as I can remember. However, when we talk about human rights, they are *Human(TM)* Rights. This is not to say, of course, that we should not treat all sentient beings with as much Humanity(TM) as we can - and that's always a shifting goalpost - but no animal is a human except us human animals. Crikey, PETA-types!
all heil president chimp
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
corporation! That way, they get their legal personhood at the same time....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
... after all, think of the chimp's longing for love, waking up to an empty pillow every day? We can't let the fact that he's not actually a human stand in the way.
I think it's already been done.
http://www.trump.com/
You are welcome on my lawn.
I thought the same thing. If a paper corporation can be considered a person...
More like Orangeandtan then an Orangutan.
No, you're thinking of John Boehner.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Can someone explain to me why none of the great apes that supposedly share so much with humans in terms of cognitive ability can be taught how to read and to write, not merely as a parlor trick that the creature utilizes so that it will receive some reward that might satisfy an immediate physiological craving such as hunger, but as a technique that the animal might use to communicate its own thoughts and ideas to others (can an ape write a creative story with a beginning, middle, and end, for example?), and in particular, be able to teach this ability to successive generations of apes who may then even surpass the ability of their own instructor? An ape that could read could then teach itself how to do many more things than what it currently knows simply by reading about them, rather than having to be explicitly instructed by someone else... it could learn the rules to a game like chess, for example.
Practically any human being can typically be taught how to read and to write by the time they are six or seven if the education is available to them. Can somebody tell me what, if anything, is so unique about the human mind that no other creature on the planet can be taught this?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Wait. Something's wrong. Earlier I saw the headline "Alabama Governor Appoints Christian Fundamentalist (Who Disavows Public Schools) to State Board of Education", and now chimps aren't people? How come they get to run our government?
Chimps everywhere rejoice that as a non-person they do not have to file federal income taxes on their daily banana allowance.
corporation! That way, they get their legal personhood at the same time....
That is the sort of monkey business up with which I will not put.
Want.
"Free, with a nominal delivery fee of $40,000" isn't a donation.
Note to mods: He meant Bush.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
i think it's time to recognize that a model of rights or no rights will soon be outdated and as more and more research happens in behavioral science, neuro science and evolutionary science, we'll soon be convinced that we have to assign varying grades of rights to different species according to their emotional and rational IQ.
Apparently they're not legally a person, unless they incorporate I suppose. Wouldn't that be an interesting conundrum.
Well, duh!
AC has been racist for a long time.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Bush was on the par with a small rock, not a chimp
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
two research chimps at Stony Brook University
http://www.chimpcare.org/asset...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Why? Are you unable to Google the string " 2,214 voters over the age of 110 "?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I think it's already been done.
http://www.trump.com/
No way that thing on his head eating his brain is a chimp.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If you want to make yoour chimp into a legal person, register it as a corporation.
shutup Mi.
You're right. It's a mythical accusation with no basis in fact.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Yup. Never mind, I was getting a bit tired of getting mod points all the time anyway.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
This should have been a no brainer. What a waste of time and money.
This works both ways. Apes (and more interestingly robots) have no human rights, but are also not required to respect these human rights, just like humans are not requred to respect ape and robot rights. I think humans will give robots human rights, since it's the only logical way to get human rights respected by robots.
Chimps may share over 98% of human DNA, but the dirty little secret is that they are three-fifths human in the legal realm.
I'm waiting for an argument for non-human primate personhood to use the Fourteenth Amendment as its fulcrum.
[PAMS choir] Titanium hood (clang!) and Dyneema® sheets (shoofff!)and a natural gas fueled cross(hssss-FWOOF!) It's the Rebirth of a Nation....Klan21!
The judge new that if they ruled in favor of the chimps, they'd likely lose their job because the chimps were obviously smarter than they are.
All we have to do is pass laws declaring that chimpanzees are corporations, then all will be well.
Funny, you can say that about Bush but you can not say that about Obama. I am black, at least partially. I think if it is fair game for the white guy it is fair game for the black guy. I think it is more racist to consider it a racial slur against black people actually. Now, if you were calling him a Porch Monkey or something...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
A coalition of scientists, animal-rights activists, and philosophers are in agreement: dolphins, second only to humans in terms of mammalian intelligence, should be considered "non-human persons" and granted due protection under law, reports The Telegraph. Petition: http://www.cetaceanrights.org/ At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, the group, led by Dr. Thomas White, was canvassing for support of their "Declaration of Cetacean Rights." "The similarities between cetaceans and humans are such that they, as we, have an individual sense of self," said White, an ethics expert at Loyola Marymount University, to The Telegraph. "Dolphins are non human persons. A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent of deliberately killing a human being. The science has shown that individuality, consciousness, self-awareness is no longer a unique human property. That poses all kinds of challenges." Dolphin research has shown that the creatures are more intelligent than chimpanzees, they recognize their reflections in a mirror, and can even think about the future. The scientists originally proposed the ten Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans two years ago at a conference in Helsinki. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sci...