Should Chimpanzees Be Given Human Rights?

Austrian animal rights activists are asking a Vienna court to declare Hiasl, a chimpanzee caught in 1982 and for use in pharmaceutical research but sent to a now-bankrupt animal sanctuary, a person.

If granted personhood, Hiasl would be able to "accept" donations for his continued care; under Austrian law, only people are eligible to receive donations, making it possible that he could be sold into research again.

The basic case for Hiasl's personhood is this:

Chimpanzees can communicate with each other, make tools, display emotions and have shown the capacity to understand the passage of time.
They also have their own culture, which varies from tribe to tribe and helps delineate individuals.

“Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights,” Eberhart Theier, the lawyer representing the Association
Against Animal Factories in court, told The Associated Press. “We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions. We’re not talking about the right to vote here.”

The activists in this case have arranged for world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall to speak as an expert witness for the case.
Goodall lends an air of credibility to the case that is hard to discount.

The Nation* columnist and *Nickel and Dimed *author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a column about the case:

If a chimpanzee can be declared a person, then there's nothing in the way of a person becoming an ape--and I'm not just talking about a retroactive status applied to ex-husbands. In fact, I predict a surge in trans-specied people, who will eagerly go over to the side of the chimps. [...]

Another reason to make the human-to-ape transition is the sex, at least if you're smart enough to declare yourself a bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee. Bonobos, who are genetically as close to humans as larger chimpanzees, use sex much as we use handshakes --as a form of greeting between individuals in any gender combination. See an old friend, and you start rubbing genitals together, with mutual orgasm serving as a hearty "How ya doin', pal?" Plus, bonobo bands are female-dominated, which should be a special enticement to women investigating their chimpanzee transition options. [...]

But just because you want, for whatever reason, to attain the status of a chimp, don't assume that you'll make the cut. Just as we don't know how the Austrian court will rule in Hiasl's case, we have no reason to believe that the chimps will have us.

On a related note, the discussion of animal rights extremism with
Frankie Trull -- promised in this post -- is still going to happen,
Monday if not today. We'll keep you posted, and it was great to see such a dialogue emerge from the post. That's what blogging is all about.

Apes need rights too [University of Washington Daily]

Better to be a chimpanzee [The Nation]
*
Image: Christopher Matson*