Posted on 04/15/2014 8:33:52 AM PDT by fishtank
Activist challenges judges to redefine chimpanzees legal status: Animal rights lawyer Steven Wise courts controversy
by Warren Nunn
Published: 15 April 2014 (GMT+10)
If Steven Wise has his way, chimps will have quasi-human rights.
Lawsuits on behalf of captive chimpanzees in America could be a turning point in how the judiciary adjudicates on animal rights.
A group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project filed lawsuits on behalf of the chimps claiming they were nonhuman animals that had a right to live free from confinement and not be regarded as property but as legal persons.1
The organisations website summarized the move:
These habeas corpus2 writs are a way of going before the court to argue that our chimpanzee plaintiffs are legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty, based on their level of complex cognition, self-awareness and autonomy, rather than simply pieces of property that can be owned, imprisoned and used for experiments.3 The movement is headed by founder and lawyer Steven Wise, who cites evolutionary philosopher Peter Singers book Animal Liberation as a light-bulb moment in his decision to pursue the animal rights cause.
It has been his lifes work to build a case and argue before a judge that an animal is a legal entity with rights and therefore should be freed of such discrimination as being kept in a cage.
(more at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
"A disinterested party may give Wise the benefit of doubt and say that animal welfare is the over-riding reason for his agenda. But consider that in 2002 Wise told a newspaper: I dont see any difference between a chimpanzee and my 4½-year-old son. That statement alone, along with what Peter Singerthe man whom Wise acknowledges as his greatest point of referenceteaches and advocates, should dispel any doubts about the de-humanising philosophy that drives them.7
Singer is co-founder of The Great Ape Project that wants basic legal rights for chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. His support for abortion, infanticide and euthanasia among other things is linked to his radical evolutionary beliefs.
Singer sees apes as our cousins and has said that the human embryoat least until it develops a nervous systemis the moral equivalent of a lettuce.8
As well, Singer sees it as totally immoral, even criminal, to boil a lobster, but has advocated infanticide for newborns.9 Its reasonable to assume that Wise may have some sympathies for such philosophies given his glowing support for such a radical individual."
When Caesar can file his own brief, Caesar will be home.
That poor child. One day, he'll read that quote.
Animal rights activist Steven Wise sees no difference between a chimpanzee and a child.
(Photo and caption from CMI article.)
I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
Hmmmm ... either he's an idiot, or his 4.5yo son is an idiot. In any case, his son will grow in knowledge, wisdom, maturity, and physical capability. The chimp will screech and throw feces at anything which angers it. Unless, of course, the chimp can get its hand on the target of its ire ...
Would he want his progeny consorting with monkeys.
Oh wait, maybe he would.
There should be no such thing as a zoo....because that’s not what they are. They’re breeding farms and it brings big bucks...but also costs US big bucks at the door.
A related book, but from the Christian point of view.
The Nazis were VERY big into environmentalism, animal rights and vegetarianism.....
They would have to promise to stop flinging their skat at us.
And we’ve already got Democrats for that. Sorry, they’re apes.
IOW it will become a democrat.
With rights come obligations. If they get rights, they then necessarily have duties, and can be held to obey laws.
First law for chimps:
stop throwing feces at each other and humans.
Second law: stop doing things in the cage that humans don’t do in public.
Third law: (what do you suggest?)
Is this just a scheme to get more 0bama voters?
Forget the chimps. I want tax deductions for my cats (and dogs for you dog owners).
The Nazis were VERY big into environmentalism, animal rights and vegetarianism.....
*************
Indeed they were. Oft forgotten, but central to them.
Demorats offer banana subsidy for chimp vote.
Banana stamps to be redeemable at grocers.
Speaking of Chips, how did those two chimps make it from the Ark all the way to deep Africa??
And not get eaten on the way?
Magic?
If this is true he should subsist on only what his clients can pay him in legal fees.
I wonder if he might change his small mind after a chimpanzee gnaws off his fingers, eats his eyes and rips off his testicles. These are the usual targets for these simple, loving creatures.
I don't fear chimps but I would never put myself in a situation where I was close to one and would sooner shoot one in the head than spend a minute exposed to it. They are vile, murderous creatures.
I propose a thought experiment ... suppose we were to release a 'chimpanzee community' in the nearest medium sized city. And suppose we were to hold them accountable for their behavior in exactly the same way we hold humans accountable for their behavior.
How long, do you suppose, would it be before all the chimpanzees were convicted of felonies and confined in prison cells?
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