Plaintiff Tommy the chimp of Johnstown, New York has made
legal history. Attorney Steve Wise on December 2, 2013 presented a case on
behalf of the chimp for his legal right to bodily liberty. Wise who represents the
Nonhuman Rights Project, asserts that 26-year-old Tommy, who has been kept
alone in a cage in a local warehouse, is a person, possessing a legal right to
bodily liberty previously reserved for humans and has a right to not be owned
or imprisoned against his will.
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Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project bases their assertions
for legal rights on decades long research conducted by nine of the world’s
leading primate scientists. These scientists have consistently demonstrated an
intense level of complexity, self-awareness and autonomy exhibited by chimps
comparable to humans. The lawsuits argue
that personhood derives from cognitive and emotional qualities that
chimpanzees, like humans, possess in abundance. While previously this kind of evidence
has been applied to questions of cage size and welfare this case marks the
first time that chimps similarities to humans have been related to the more
basic legal question of personhood.
According to Wise, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a human or a
chimp, if you have the cognitive capacity to live life as you choose, you
should be able to do that. Your species is completely, completely irrelevant.”
It is unclear if the lawsuit will be dismissed or not. The
legal system is not known for being radical in their approach to decisions such
as this especially since the implications and precedent for a suit could be attributed to other animals living in research institutions and farms.
There are some animal protection laws already on the books
especially for endangered species. But these don’t consider the individual
animal or its “personhood”. Rather they reflect the value society places on
populations and species units. Individuality might be acknowledged in requirements
that research chimpanzees be given toys to play with, but these are only token
generosities given by humans to their closest relatives not acknowledgement of
an animal’s essential personhood. Wise, if given the opportunity to be heard by
the courts will argue the chimps “personhood” and his associated rights under
that identification.
Wise points out that “There is no question this court would
release Tommy if he were a human being. There can be equally no doubt that
Tommy is imprisoned for a single reason: despite his capacities for autonomy,
self-determination, self-awareness, and dozens of other allied and connected
extraordinarily complex cognitive abilities, he is a chimpanzee.”
Read more at Wired.
Chimp
image via Shutterstock.