US lawsuit demands 'legal personhood' for chimpanzees

Case seeks to designate chimp called Tommy as a 'cognitively complex autonomous legal person'

Reuters 02 Dec 2013

A US animal rights group has filed what it said is the first lawsuit seeking to establish the "legal personhood" of chimpanzees. The non-profit Nonhuman Rights Project asked a New York state court to declare a 26-year-old chimp named Tommy "a cognitively complex autonomous legal person with the fundamental legal right not to be imprisoned." The lawsuit seeks a declaration that Tommy's "detention" in a "small, dank, cement cage in a cavernous dark shed" in central New York is unlawful and demands his immediate release to a primate sanctuary. Chimpanzees "possess complex cognitive abilities that are so strictly protected when they're found in human beings," Steven Wise, the president of Nonhuman Rights Project, told Reuters. "There's no reason why they should not be protected when they're found in chimpanzees," he added...... In a decision applauded by animal rights groups, the US National Institutes of Health in January said it was reducing its use of chimps in biomedical research, retiring most to sanctuaries. At the time, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins called chimps "very special animals" that deserve "special consideration.".....To Read More.....

My Take - Just a few points. If animals can be legally declared  'persons', do they have the right to roam the streets at will, buy a home, have responsibilities such as paying taxes, receiving social benefits and voting, can they be tried for attacks against other animals or humans, or sued for damage to personal property?  If these animals really were 'persons' with complex autonomous legal qualifications why didn't they file this lawsuit themselves?

The article says they are very special animals that deserve special consideration. I agree. In many parts of the world they are cooked with great care and eaten with relish.  Let's face it, animals cannot be people, but I find it interesting that those who are misanthropic in their personal philosophies are all leftists, and while promoting nonsense such as this they continue to heatedly support the murder of unborn humans.

The left is filled with irrational, misanthropic and morally corrupt people and society still listens to them.  We see all these efforts to scientifically and absolutely define what sentience is, and that will always be impossible, because these clever little minds will always come up with some sort of objection to obfuscate the matter. 

Here is the real answer and what the real issue is all about with all leftists.  People are people and animals are animals because God said so.  And that’s what they want to destroy.  If animals are people, then people are animals and there is no God.  If there is no God the state has the right to declare itself the ultimate moral authority, and everyone must submit.  

  

See….clarity!