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Activist challenges judges to redefine chimpanzees’ legal status
Creation Ministries International ^ | 4-15-14 | Warren Nunn

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 organisation’s 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 Singer’s book Animal Liberation as a light-bulb moment in his decision to pursue the animal rights cause.

It has been his life’s 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 ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; chimpanzees; creation; singer
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From the article:

"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 don’t see any difference between a chimpanzee and my 4½-year-old son.” That statement alone, along with what Peter Singer—the man whom Wise acknowledges as his greatest point of reference—teaches 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 embryo—at least until it develops a nervous system—is 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 It’s reasonable to assume that Wise may have some sympathies for such philosophies given his glowing support for such a radical individual."

1 posted on 04/15/2014 8:33:52 AM PDT by fishtank
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To: fishtank

When Caesar can file his own brief, Caesar will be home.


2 posted on 04/15/2014 8:35:35 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (FIGHT! FIGHT! SEVERE CONSERVATIVE AND THE WILD RIGHT!)
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To: fishtank
“I don’t see any difference between a chimpanzee and my 4½-year-old son.”

That poor child. One day, he'll read that quote.

3 posted on 04/15/2014 8:36:06 AM PDT by wbill
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To: fishtank

Animal rights activist Steven Wise sees no difference between a chimpanzee and a child.

(Photo and caption from CMI article.)

4 posted on 04/15/2014 8:36:22 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: fishtank

I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.


5 posted on 04/15/2014 8:36:55 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I will raise $2M for Cruz and/or Palin's next run, what will you do?)
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To: fishtank
n 2002 Wise told a newspaper: “I don’t see any difference between a chimpanzee and my 4½-year-old son.”

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 ...

6 posted on 04/15/2014 8:37:12 AM PDT by NorthMountain
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To: fishtank

Would he want his progeny consorting with monkeys.

Oh wait, maybe he would.


7 posted on 04/15/2014 8:37:30 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: fishtank

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.


8 posted on 04/15/2014 8:37:41 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: fishtank

A related book, but from the Christian point of view.

The Nazis were VERY big into environmentalism, animal rights and vegetarianism.....

9 posted on 04/15/2014 8:39:54 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: fishtank

They would have to promise to stop flinging their skat at us.
And we’ve already got Democrats for that. Sorry, they’re apes.


10 posted on 04/15/2014 8:41:34 AM PDT by tumblindice (Are all Democrats inveterate, habitual liars?)
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To: NorthMountain
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 ..

IOW it will become a democrat.

11 posted on 04/15/2014 8:45:59 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: fishtank

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?


12 posted on 04/15/2014 8:48:33 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible traitors. Complicit in the destruction of our country.)
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To: fishtank

Forget the chimps. I want tax deductions for my cats (and dogs for you dog owners).


13 posted on 04/15/2014 8:48:56 AM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: fishtank

The Nazis were VERY big into environmentalism, animal rights and vegetarianism.....

*************

Indeed they were. Oft forgotten, but central to them.


14 posted on 04/15/2014 8:54:54 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (FIGHT! FIGHT! SEVERE CONSERVATIVE AND THE WILD RIGHT!)
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To: I want the USA back

Demorats offer banana subsidy for chimp vote.
Banana stamps to be redeemable at grocers.


15 posted on 04/15/2014 8:55:24 AM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: fishtank

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?


16 posted on 04/15/2014 8:56:33 AM PDT by sickoflibs (Obama : 'You can keep your doctor if you want. I never tell a lie ')
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To: fishtank
” Animal rights lawyer Steven Wise..........”

If this is true he should subsist on only what his clients can pay him in legal fees.

17 posted on 04/15/2014 9:00:08 AM PDT by CrazyIvan (Obama phones= Bread and circuits.)
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To: fishtank
Animal rights activist Steven Wise sees no difference between a chimpanzee and a child.

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.

18 posted on 04/15/2014 9:02:36 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Truth sounds like hate...to those who hate truth.)
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To: I want the USA back
With rights come obligations. If [chimps] get rights, they then necessarily have duties, and can be held to obey laws.

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?

19 posted on 04/15/2014 9:04:46 AM PDT by NorthMountain
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
he sounds like a shoo in for a new obama cabiet post


20 posted on 04/15/2014 9:05:09 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill ..We WIll Remember Bunkerville!)
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