Posted on 06/27/2006 9:41:55 AM PDT by presidio9
Spain's parliament is to declare support for rights to life and freedom for great apes on Wednesday, apparently the first time any national legislature will have recognized such rights for non-humans.
Parliament is to ask the government to adhere to the Great Ape Project, which would mean recognizing that our closest genetic relatives should be part of a "community of equals" with humans, supporters of the resolution said.
The move in a country better known for bull-fighting would follow a string of social reforms which have converted Spain from one of Europe's most conservative nations into a liberal trailblazer.
Backers of the resolution expect support from the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose government has legalized gay marriage and reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education.
"With this, Spain will make itself a world leader in protection of the great apes," said Pedro Pozas, general secretary of the Great Ape Project's Spanish branch.
The resolution, presented by a Green Party parliamentarian, prompted criticism and some ridicule at first.
Spanish media quoted the Catholic Archbishop of Pamplona as saying it was ludicrous to grant apes rights not enjoyed by unborn children, in a reference to Spanish abortion laws.
But a spokesman for Archbishop Fernando Sebastian said he had been taken out of context and now supported the resolution.
"We are in favor of defending animals, but people come first," Father Santos Villanueva told Reuters.
Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the Great Ape Project in 1993, arguing apes were so close to humans they deserved rights to life, freedom and not to be tortured.
"When a loved one dies, they grieve for a long time. They can solve complex puzzles that stump most two-year-old humans," said Singer.
The Spanish move could set a precedent for greater legal protection for other animals, including elephants, whales and dolphins, said Paul Waldau, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University.
"We were born into a society where humans alone are the sole focus, and we begin to expand to the non-human great apes. It isn't easy for us to see how far that expansion will go, but it's very clear we need to expand beyond humans," Waldau said.
There are only a few hundred apes in Spain, mainly chimpanzees. But the resolution would also push the government to help endangered populations in Africa and Asia, said Pozas, speaking to Reuters at a sanctuary outside Madrid sheltering half a dozen chimpanzees rescued from abuse.
Apes? Must be they think its is thier Grandfathers.
This is madness. Apes are not the equivalent of humans in intelligence and reasoning (except perhaps Spanish leftists).
Kool!
Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!
This is why I'm a Second Amendment supporter. If the great apes had and could use firearms, they'd have rights.
Isn't he the guy who favors legalized bestiality?
From his Wiki entry:
"He favors a 'journey' model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey's goals. So taking a life is less wrong at the beginning, when no goals have been set, and at the end, when the goals have either been met or are unlikely to be accomplished. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire, explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable, and accounts for why it is wrong to bring a miserable life into existence. Although sentience puts a being within the sphere of equal consideration of interests, only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures. For instance, one has an interest in food, but not in the pleasures of the palate that might distinguish eating steak from eating tofu, because nutrition is instrumental to many goals in one's life journey, whereas the desire for meat is not and is therefore trumped by the interest of animals in avoiding the miseries of factory farming."
What a fruit loop.
Incredible. Peter Singer, who does not support the right to life of an eight-week old child with spina bifida, is willing to protect a f---ing ape.
WTF is wrong with this world...?
Or is this a different Peter Singer? Either way, it's out of control.
I wonder who the first Spaniard will be to marry one?
Someone will legalize the human-ape marriage soon.....
it's the same one.
Sin....
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