Update from Spain: Amnesty International and Catholic Church are taken aback
Recently the human rights group Amnesty International spoke against the idea of according basic rights to nonhuman great apes now being considered by Spain’s governing Socialist Party.
Amnesty International correctly observed that the rights of many humans in the world are yet to be respected. The group also correctly understood that advocates are actually asking for basic rights for nonhuman apes, acknowledged by the United Nations — not just improvements in the conditions in which humans hold and use other great apes.
What Amnesty International misses is that respecting the ‘personhood’ of great apes does not diminish human rights. Moreover, such a change would help humanity to preserve the environment instead of destroying it, and it would open more general discussions of animal rights in Spain.
The Catholic archbishop Fernando Sebastian denounced the apes’ rights proposal, reportedly declaring, “Too much progress becomes ridiculous.”
More information available at the Great Ape Standing & Personhood website.
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9 Comments
On May 5, 2006, Joan Cameron wrote:
Regarding Archbishop Sebastian’s comment as qutoed above: “Too much progress becomes ridiculous.”
It would be interesting & useful for all of us, if Rome would first offer a definition for the word progress.
It took them 350 years to admit that Galileo was actually right…
For the rest of us, though- There are some things we’d like to see in our lifetimes…
The eyes are the window into the soul… Look into the eyes of any great ape, & tell me that someone you know is not looking back.
On May 8, 2006, Danielle V wrote:
First of all…Christ did not promise infallability in non-faith matters so yes…the Church may have been wrong about Galileo. However…maybe not since a geocentric model of the universe “works” just as well. ( : My thoughts are animals don’t need rights in order for human beings to be decent to them. Human rights are violated all the time by other human beings so why would we think according animals rights would take care of cruelty? It won’t. It’ll make it illegal and that’s maybe a step forward but I think people are missing the basic point. Why do animals have to be equal to us? Why can’t they just BE? We should treat them in accordance with their nature no more..no less.
On May 8, 2006, Lee Hall wrote:
Hello, Danielle V.
It is true that we should treat them in accordance with their nature and let them be.
Justice Louis Brandeis defined the right of privacy as “the right to be let alone,” calling it “the most comprehensive of rights.” To let other apes alone is all that is asked here.
But there’s a problem. Our human laws currently view most beings as fitting into one of two categories: persons with fundamental rights or items of property.
Under current law, the status of nonhuman primates, unfortunately but quite firmly, is that of property, wherever they happen to be caught. The law as it now stands cannot be defended, save as a product of the ignorance of its time. Because of this ignorance, hundreds of nonhuman apes and many thousands of primates are used by the entertainment and advertising industries, kept on display at zoos, or sold to private owners. About 2000 great apes, primarily chimpanzees, live in laboratory cages in at least six biomedical institutions in the United States, where they are treated as expendable for research. So something has to change from the human legal perpective if we are going to achieve that which you rightly hope.
Non-human primates might have a less complex (or simply different) set of values than yours and mine. But legal equality does not mean equivalence: it does not mean that all individuals are the same, or have the same needs. Other apes make no demand for permission to vote or to hold public office. Their interest is in freedom from being examined, captured, from being subjected to physical and emotional pain — basic rights. Classifying them as property, as though they were pieces of silverware, ought to shock the conscience, because this can and does condemn them to a life controlled by others.
In summary, our human laws currently view most beings as fitting into one of two categories: persons with fundamental rights or items of property. Thus, the issue is whether we can, in good conscience, maintain the legal distinction between persons and nonpersons by drawing a bright line around human beings (and a few of our creations, such as corporations), to the absolute exclusion of all others.
This is the key issue that we hope will be squarely addressed in Spain.
Lee Hall,
Friends of Animals.
On May 12, 2006, Sue Smyczynski wrote:
To be certain, treatment toward humans is often deplorable. Where no laws exist to protect humans, then they should be put forth and enforced. Non-human animals do suffer much as humans do and where laws do not exist, they should be advocated to end suffering and exploitation. I do not see how working to protect non-humans will in any way neccitate the decline in treatment for humans. We as humans can improve greatly if we put was is right above exploitative traditions or greed and let compassion and science guide us.
On May 16, 2006, Danielle V wrote:
Thank you for your explanation. It will serve to broaden my own understanding. Absolutely…animals are not silverware and should not be treated as such. However..I may be a minority here but I have no problem wiht “owning” animals or using the word “pet” Owning them, however, does not give someone the right to abuse them. If was remiss in my statement about human rights I apologize. I agree that protecting animals and seeking protection for their natural rights would NOT mean a “taking away” from human rights. Thanks again!
On May 18, 2006, alex parker wrote:
i think you are all forgetting that these arent human.
On May 23, 2006, Hal Carpenter wrote:
The apes are our sisters and brothers. They have no religion, do not go to war, do not hate and seek no revenge. They are the most wonderful of nature’s creatures, and worthy of our love and protection. They are about to vanish from earth, and will never be recreated or seen again. How can we look in the mirror and not feel shame and at the same time fear that we are, each one of us, personally responsible.
On May 28, 2006, Patrick wrote:
I think it is horable what people do to these poor seals.Animals are part of LIFE TOO!!!
On May 31, 2006, Danielle wrote:
So what if they’re not human? What on Earth does that mattter? No one, not even the most hardened factory farmer who’d stepped on “Fidos” tail would say, “Well its not human.” That yelp is good enough for me to know it hurts and no one should intentionally hurt any living creature without VERY good cause, if such a thing exists.