What would Darwin say?

A “chimp personhood” lawsuit has been filed this week in a New York State appeals court, arguing that chimpanzees are “complex, cognitive and autonomous beings,” thus fitting the definition of a human and affording them basic legal rights. Talk about a monkey suit.

Writes NBC News on Oct. 8: “A New York appeals court will consider whether chimpanzees are entitled to ‘legal personhood’ in what experts say is the first case of its kind. On Wednesday, a mid-level state appeals court will hear the case of 26-year-old Tommy, who is owned by a human and lives alone in what attorney Steven Wise describes as a ‘dark, dank shed’ in upstate New York.”

The ruling of the case will have implications for other highly intelligent animals, such as elephants, whales and dolphins – even our pet cats and dogs. Wise, author of the book Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, argues that animals with human qualities deserve fundamental rights, including the right to not be kept in a cage. His petition, filed on behalf of Tommy and three other primates, was initially rejected and is now on appeals.

The suit is backed by the Boston-based Nonhuman Rights Project, a nonprofit organization “working toward actual legal rights for members of species other than our own.” Wise’s petition calls for animals to be granted habeas corpus and due process, thus making it unlawful to treat an animal as personal property and place it into a “prison,” or cage-like enclosure.

The lawsuit, brought against Tommy’s owner, Patrick Lavery of Gloversville, alleges that chimpanzees possess “complex cognitive abilities as autonomy, self-determination, self-consciousness, awareness of the past, anticipation of the future and the ability to make choices; display complex emotions such as empathy; and construct diverse cultures.”

Of those cognitive abilities, what makes chimps most human is their “possession of an autobiographical self, episodic memory, self-determination, self-consciousness, self-knowing, self-agency, referential and intentional communication, language planning, mental time-travel,” claims the suit.

The suit says there is already legal basis established for its request. “New York statutory and common law do not limit legal personhood to Homo sapiens and have already conferred legal personhood status on non-human domestic animals who are the beneficiaries of trusts,” says the petition. “Courts also have routinely extended rights to non-human entities such as corporations.”

Lavery said that Tommy is a “cared for under strict state and federal license rules,” adding that he thinks it’s “totally ridiculous to give an animal human rights.” Tommy, a previous entertainment chimp who was abused, was placed with Lavery years ago and lives in a “seven-room enclosure with lots of toys and other enrichment,” Lavery claims.

“We've dedicated our lives to taking care of these chimps who have no place to go,” Lavery said. “We would place him in the right sanctuary if we had the opportunity to. But he has special needs, he can't go just anywhere. He's never been associated with other chimps. He could get hurt if he went in the wrong atmosphere.”

Pepperdine Law School professor and animal legal rights expert Richard Cupp said that allowing personhood status of animals would involuntarily weaken our own human rights.

“We could see over time some of our most vulnerable humans losing out in a rights struggle if they're in direct competition with some particularly intelligent non-human animals,” Cupp said. “We could have the personhood paradigm weakened by extending it to animals.”

Source: Examiner.com 

Damien's note: I suppose those monkeys in the House of Representatives will be excited to hear this.