Human rights... for chimps?
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Human rights... for chimps?
We haven't had a good debate topic in a couple of weeks, so I hope this livens this board up a bit.
Chimps are people too, insists scientist
Dr Martin Balluch, an animal rights campaigner who instructed lawyers to file for guardianship for Ms Stibbe, said: "
We argue that chimps are part of the same genus as humans and that they also incorporate all the characteristics to justify personhood, in that they recognise and anticipate the rights and needs of other individuals."
Not all experts agree, however. Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at the University of London, said human rights did not apply to animals, adding: "If you start, where do you stop? Being human is unique and nothing to do with biology. Mice share 90 per cent of human DNA. Should they get 90 per cent of human rights? And plants have more DNA than humans. Chimps can't speak, but parrots can - should they have rights too?"
What do you think? And in what other areas might this relate to human rights?
Personally, I think Ms. Stibbe and PETA and many of the other so-called animal rights activists need to get a life. I would be very surprised if there were not already a court appointed trustee to manage the funds to provide for "Matthew". This thing about "guardianship" is just another move to put animals on the same legal footing as humans. And, there is the matter of several thousands of dollars at stake. I wonder if Ms. Stibbe intends to use all of that money for Matthew's welfare if she prevails in this legal action, or if some of it might be diverted to efforts to claim human rights for other chimpanzees not included in the donor's generosity. I note that no mention is made of anyone seeking guardianship of the other chimpanzee intended to be cared for by the donor's gift.
Steve Jones points out correctly that sharing DNA is not unique to chimps or gorillas (another group of animals mentioned in the article), though not to quite the same percentage. If we share 99% of our DNA with chimps (and perhaps gorillas), I suspect we share nearly as much DNA with baboons, macaques, lemurs, and other primates.
If one agrees with the theories propounded by Darwin and scientists who support his research and have continued it, somewhere along the line some apes or other primates crossed the line and became the ancestors of humans, but Matthew's ancestors didn't.
Yes, chimps are intelligent, and some learn ASL and can communicate some basic things such as asking for food or toys. So can dolphins, and there is a lot of evidence that dolphins anticipate the needs of other dolphins in their pod, including physically supporting a wounded dolphin so it can breathe. Whales are also considered by scientists to be extremely intelligent, and are known to support members of their pods who are in danger or in need. Otters use tools (breaking clam shells with rocks). None of which makes any of them human. A lot of species have methods of communicating with each other that appear to be something other than instinctive repetition of certain sounds or motions, and I have read that chimps and gorillas - and dolphins and whales - have means of communicating specific information to each other. I've also read that ants and bees, for example can communicate to other ants or bees when they have found a source of food, and groups of ants in a hill or bees in a hive are assigned the task of taking care of the eggs and larvae that become adults of their hill or hive. Surely that is communication and caring for the needs of others.
A lot of individual characteristics that we think of as human are exhibited by many different kinds of animals. No small set of such shared characteristics makes an animal, even a chimpanzee, a human. I haven't thought of a list of characteristics which would all have to be possessed by a group (not an individual member of the group) to separate human from animal, but I'm sure some group of scientists has.
(I differentiate "group" from "individual" because otherwise one gets into the issue of whether a person who is profoundly mentally damaged from birth is human if that person doesn't demonstrate "human" characteristics. I think this is a false argument, because I think it is the total set of characteristics of the total group that matters, not an individual in the group.)
Hmm. I am disappointed that no one else (other than Ginny) found this as interesting as I did. 
The thought that struck me at very first was that if this case is decided in favor of Ms. Stibbe, then it would stand to reason that if a chimp can have human rights, why couldn't an unborn fetus? After all, it is a proven fact that a fetus, if allowed to live, can be taught to communicate just as a chimp can.
I haven't had a chance to read the article, but AMEN! on your last post Lisa.
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