Update: No Personhood for Chimps Yet 336
sciencehabit writes: In a decision that effectively recognizes chimpanzees as legal persons for the first time, a New York judge [Monday] granted a pair of Stony Brook University lab animals the right to have their day in court. The ruling marks the first time in U.S. history that an animal has been covered by a writ of habeus corpus, which typically allows human prisoners to challenge their detention. The judicial action could force the university, which is believed to be holding the chimps, to release the primates, and could sway additional judges to do the same with other research animals.
Update: 04/21 21:39 GMT by S : Science has updated their article with news that the court has released an amended order (PDF) with the words "writ of habeas corpus" removed, no longer implying that chimps have legal personhood. The order still allows the litigation to go forward, but we'll have to wait for resolution.
Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Funny)
While I question some of the treatment of research animals, what exactly did the chimps ask of the court?
They want people to stop saying we are related to them.
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While I question some of the treatment of research animals, what exactly did the chimps ask of the court?
They want people to stop saying we are related to them.
Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.... Really? That's it?
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Informative)
The Judge did nothing of the sort, the chimps were the ones named in the case by the animal rights activists, the Judge had to direct any motion at the chimps for the owners of the chimps to respond - and thats what he did here. He asked the owners to respond, via the Habeus Corpus motion - he had no other recourse.
The activists are claiming something that didn't happen.
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it's the headline that makes that claim, not the activists. They are being quite careful to clearly state the legal position and their reasons for doing it.
The problem is US law is pretty weak on animal rights in general, and doesn't have clear mechanisms for dealing with situations like this. So, they tried something unorthodox, and it has at least got them a hearing.
That's why it is important, even if you don't agree with their position that the university should not keep the chimps captive in the way it does. It is creating a legal framework for deciding these things, because the law currently lacks one.
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Animals don't have responsibilities, so why should they have rights? We do have laws against mistreating animals. These aren't perfect or perfectly enforced, but what would be changed by "animal rights" laws?
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The right to fling poo, no doubt.
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Informative)
"The ruling marks the first time in U.S. history that an animal has been covered by a writ of habeus corpus, which typically allows human prisoners to challenge their detention." While I question some of the treatment of research animals, what exactly did the chimps ask of the court?
Careful what you ask for. I knew some of the people involved with an old program at OU teaching chimps sign language. They eventually had the vocabularies of human 3 year olds. The program was eventually cancelled and the chimps split up to other research facilities. I've heard the stories from the grad students involved about how they would go visit those chimps, and they would sign "I'm in pain. I want to go home." while in the cages.
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Nim [wikipedia.org] was one of the chimps I heard about, I think. I specifically remember a story about smoking marijuana. The actual phrase was "stone smoke". The story went that guy telling the story was working on a grad paper on w weekend the chimp was living with him, and the chimp came in and was signing something like "make stone smoke" but he had to finish the paper so he kept telling him later. After a while he realized he hadn't see the chimp in a bit so he went looking and found the chimp who had not only found
Chimps are corporations? (Score:3)
People mocked the idea that corporations are essentially people. And yet here we are, giving the same rights to chimps.
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What did the chimps ask? (Score:5, Funny)
Take your stinking paws off me you damned dirty ape!
Re: Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not saying they don't deserve representation but that representation is a very confusing situation.
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Ah, these activist judges! (Score:5, Funny)
What's next? A judgement against the internet on behalf of cats everywhere?
Re:Ah, these activist judges! (Score:5, Funny)
Despite making poor judicial precedent, I see a great Disney movie blossoming out of this.
What's next? A judgement against the internet on behalf of cats everywhere?
I can haz a cut of da profits?
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Just what are you going to do with the profits? Buy a boat?
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... my apologies, I don't know what came over me.
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Kitty! [xkcd.com]
Genius! (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, medical research slowly comes to a crashing halt in test phases. Millions of people die due to reactions which were not seen in simulations. Environmental moonbats everywhere cheer.
Re:Genius! (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense. We can always test new drugs on creatures that absolutely no one cares about.
Lawyers.
Re:Genius! (Score:5, Funny)
Animal rights activists.
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If millions of people die because of inadequate testing then that's the fault of the people who tested the drug. There are plenty of humans who would volunteer for tests with full knowledge and understanding of the risks. There are plenty of animals that don't suffer the same was a chimps to, such as mice, that can be used for a lot of the tests.
The argument is that while chimps are convenient test subjects, there are alternatives. More expensive alternatives, but we should at least think about what price w
Lack of geniuses is a problem. (Score:3)
There are plenty of humans who would volunteer for tests with full knowledge and understanding of the risks.
You are vastly overestimating the ability for even the average human to assess such risks, much less a significant majority of the population.
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Having known people who have been in human trials, I can tell you that there is a big difference between an average drug you take which has been FDA approved, and one you might be fed in a clinical trial. Lots of side effects crop up in trials, some which can be dealt with by changes to recommended dosage or formulation, but others which send the drug back to the drawing board entirely.
I'm kind of bummed that *anything* human or higher animal has to be subjected to that kind of testing, but it is what it i
Re:Genius! (Score:4, Insightful)
we should at least think about what price we are willing to put on the suffering of highly developed animals.
We did. "Good drugs" seems to be the consensus.
Not every condition is life threatening, where humans would be willing to risk unknown side effects. And even if humans are willing to take that risk, there are bigger ethical concerns, like the potential for vulnerable people to be coerced into trials.
Re:Genius! (Score:5, Insightful)
On your planet maybe. But here on Earth we don't allow human testing in the early phases of drug development. And even if they did allow human testing, the volunteers can't possibly have full knowledge and understanding of the risks - because at that stage of the game, that knowledge doesn't exist. That's why we test on animals in the first place.
Where they can be, they already are. Primates are among the expensive and difficult lab animals to maintain, and thus are only used where no other reasonable alternative exists. (Or, again, the world you describe is a very different one from Earth.)
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yet
Re:Genius! (Score:5, Insightful)
Chimps today...rats and rhesus monkeys tomorrow!
Re:Genius! (Score:5, Insightful)
While I may not count myself on your side in this debate, I do think that your side has a number of decent arguments going for it. It's a shame that you've failed to provide any of them here.
A) You've lumped everyone who disagrees with you into the "we're superior creatures and can dispose of animals as we desire" crowd. That's a gross oversimplification of the alternative views to your own.
B) Claiming you have a moral footing is very different from actually having one. There are an abundance of well-established moral foundations on which you might have established your footing, but you didn't mention a single one. Instead, what you did provide was simply, "I'll believe what I want to believe and you can't convince me otherwise". Moreover, the moral discomfort you claim is undeniable would be denied by many here.
C) You're suggesting, without providing a basis for your assertion, that we're not treating the animals with enough dignity already, despite the fact that we have ethics boards in place to review research and ensure that animals are not being harmed unnecessarily, abused, or mistreated. Researchers are held to the highest standards and don't undertake their actions lightly. The only assumption we can make from what you've said is that you believe their use in research to be contrary to maintaining their dignity, suggesting that they are due a level of dignity that is typically reserved for persons.
D) Despite that, you acknowledge that they are not entitled to personhood. If non-persons are entitled to the dignity of personhood, then where do we stop? Are rhesus monkeys due the dignity of personhood? Rats? Leeches? Plants? Tree bark? Dirt? Water? Not only have you failed to establish a moral footing for your beliefs, you've actually established your beliefs on the side of a slippery slope.
Again, I do think that there's a case to be made for why we shouldn't use animals in lab tests, but saying that we're entitled to our opinions and that it won't change your unexplained "moral footing" is not the way to go about making your case.
Next up... (Score:2)
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Re:Apes will rise! (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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".the right to ... carry arms."
Good thinking. The judge needs to declare them "mentally defective"(by human standards) so that they get added to the NICS database and will be denied firearms purchase.
Intelligence (Score:2)
Comparatively, chimps are fairly intelligent animals. Of course, compared to worms, chickens are fairly intelligent animals, and chickens are incredibly dumb.
Chimp interview ... (Score:2)
At the time of publishing, the chimps were unavailable for comment, though they could be observed engaging in their habitual poo-flinging and screeching.
The judge has indicated that if the chimps cannot conduct themselves with decorum in the court he will summarily find against them.
Rights campaigners have suggested the lawyers representing the chimps could be used in place of the chimps, thought there was some debate as to if the lawyers were themselves considered legal persons, instead of merely being sli
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>WTF is the definition of legal person at this point?
Considering that legal personhood is granted to corporations (literally a piece of paper with an official stamp on it - that's what a "corporation" in fact consists of), with no material existence, and "his" decisions made by a bunch of other people who all own a bit of "him", the word has been meaningless for decades.
I don't really see this as causing any major problems - at least, relatively speaking. If this is opening a can of worms, then granting
Can we skip a bit of misinformation? (Score:2)
Corporations are legal persons because only legal persons can sign legal documents. The moment they stop being persons, every single contract they are one of the signatories upon are worth precisely as much as the paper it's on, possibly less if it's an electronic document. This is good--as long as they don't own things you need access to or owe you goods, services, and/or money...and it's safe to bet that at least one of these is true. (You thought you had a contract with your employer saying they paid
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Considering that legal personhood is granted to corporations
Don't believe every political rant you read. Corporations are restricted by the same laws that restrict people. Would you rather they weren't? A tightly-held corporation is treated the same way as a partnership: as a group of people owning a business together.
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WTF is the definition of legal person at this point?
Well, this is something we are constantly reexamining. Over the last century and a half we moved women, blacks, and children from the 'not person' to 'person' category, with children still holding restricted rights. As we learn more and more about brains, as a society we have to ask some rather difficult questions. Originally black people were not considered 'people' due to the belief their brains were more 'animal than man', which turned out to be BS. Today we are, bit by bit, discovering that quite
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At the time of publishing, the chimps were unavailable for comment, though they could be observed engaging in their habitual poo-flinging and screeching.
Please review TFA. It was not the chimps flinging and screeching, it was their lawyers.
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So can chimps now be arrested? Sued? Hold a job? Pay taxes? Get married? (Would it be ok if the chimps didn't do same sex marriage?) Hell, if they're legal persons, what's the age of consent for a chimp?
Either you define the rights and obligations which come from being a "legal person", or you are just making shit up as you go, and then you have a legal system based on nothing which can be interpreted.
Unless you clarify and codify a
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So can chimps now be arrested? Sued? Hold a job? Pay taxes? Get married? (Would it be ok if the chimps didn't do same sex marriage?) Hell, if they're legal persons, what's the age of consent for a chimp?
Either you define the rights and obligations which come from being a "legal person", or you are just making shit up as you go, and then you have a legal system based on nothing which can be interpreted.
This is not really the case though. Our legal system has quite a bit in place already for handling those who are 'people' but do not have full rights and obligations. The biggest group would be children, who have a reduced set of rights and responsibilities, but still have personhood when it comes to legal protections and processes. This is also true for people with significant mental handicaps and people unable to communicate (such as being in a coma).
So we already have ample precedent for this type of
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And what's the legal age of consent for a corporation? Have you ever seen a corporation get arrested, go to jail or be given the death penalty?
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Actually, it's cases like this that help define what constitutes rights and obligations for the plaintiff. To your example, corporations weren't automatically assumed to be people, but in the late 1800s cases were raised as to the validity of contracts held by corporations. The contracts were deemed valid, since the court ruled that people should not be deprived of their constitutional rights when they act collectively - therefore granting equal "rights" to corporations similar to individuals, in that narro
Have we solved all human rights issues? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Are you only capable of caring about one thing at a time, or considering one problem at a time? What if there, say, 7 billion of you, would they all need to concentrate on one thing at a time or could each one work on different things?
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Have we solved all human rights issues so we now moved on to grant animals personhood?
While I'm not disagreeing with you, I really dislike this question. Have we solved all problems on Earth that we should start exploring space? Have we solved all problems in America so we should start developing a foreign policy? Have we solved all problems in physics that we can now move on to chemistry?
Simply put, we don't have a clear queue of problems, and probably never will. And even if we did, not all problems can be solved faster by having more people work on them, so it will always make sense to be
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You're trolling, right? Because what you said is textbook stupid, an example that sounds contrived because it too perfectly illustrates the links below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/N... [rationalwiki.org]
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Bullshit.
You NEED to travel more.
Hmm (Score:2, Informative)
When it is possible to sit down with your lab "animal" and have a conversation in sign language...
Maybe they shouldn't be a lab animal.
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We are talking a trained animal, does your dog still wish to run wild with other dogs? Does your cat wish to hunt in the wild? We aren't talking about something natural, while chimps do have the intelligence to learn sign language we aren't talking about something that is passed down from mother to offspring, it's something taught in a lab.
I do see your point and it
Catch 22 (Score:2)
They can only sign to you because they were trained to do so as lab animals. So you want a threshold of sign language competence to trigger release from captivity?
I honestly don't know how I feel about lab animals. Some reasonable debate and facts on their treatment and value of what is provided by the research would be nice. Of course I also want honest answers from politicians, so maybe I am just deluding myself.
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Chomsky is that you?
You know the answer is no. Even if language isn't wired into the brain (as it currently looks) human children develop language by observation and emulation.
Re:Catch 22 (Score:4, Interesting)
Single feral children don't talk. But groups of children, held in isolation without any language contact, develop their own invented language.
The Catholics did it in the middle ages. Apparently they expected the kids to spontaneously start speaking Hebrew. Experiment couldn't be ethically repeated today.
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Well, 'incapable of it' is sort of a stretch. See this documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (around ~7:00)
which is about this girl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
There are some potential issues in this specific example, but I'd say it does show that even a severely abused/sortof feral human child is better capable of acquiring language (to some extent) than any individual of another primate species.
Don't forget that the examples of 'having a conversation in sign language [with primates (or birds
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"we aren't talking about something that is passed down from mother to offspring, it's something taught in a lab."
umm. They do teach eachother. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loulis_(chimpanzee) [wikipedia.org]
It wasn't his mother who taught him, she was used for medical testing. And he learned from other chips in a sanctuary, not the wild.
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Interestingly enough, despite many primates being taught sign language, none of them have ever used it to ask an existential question. Interestingly enough, the only a
Habeus Corpus (Score:4, Interesting)
We don't even have this right for humans (sitting in Gitmo ) in this country, but they considering to grant monkeys this right? Unbelievable.
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We don't even have this right for humans (sitting in Gitmo ) in this country, but they considering to grant monkeys this right? Unbelievable.
Gitmo is not *in this country*.
The entire *point* of Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay detention camp) is its extraterritoriality, and the fact that non-U.S. citizen detainees there are thus not afforded constitutional protections. That's *precisely* why Gitmo exists, and it's *precisely* why no president has, or will, honor their campaign promises to close the thing. It's too damn useful. Obama could close it tomorrow, if he wanted to, by fiat, by issuing an executive order. He is commander in chief of the armed f
How long... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Wouldn't work because a chimp could never give informed consent to marry. Just saying "I do" isn't enough in the eyes of the law in most places; both parties have to be aware of what they are getting in to. That's why there are minimum age limits and forced marriage laws.
Summary is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The summary is wrong or at the very least highly misleading. What the judge did was allow the argument for chimp personhood to go forward. In other words the court did not find that chimps were unquestionably merely property. That's much weaker than deciding they are actual persons or legal persons. So yes there was a step forward for Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) but nowhere near as big a step as the summary implies.
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The Nonhuman Rights Project is the only organization working through the common law to achieve actual LEGAL rights for members of species other than our own. So normally in the USA groups work for "animal rights" which are spe
While at it... (Score:2)
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Maybe elect one for president ?
IRS (Score:5, Funny)
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Results may be interesting. (Score:3)
The judicial action could force the university, which is believed to be holding the chimps, to release the primates
Release... Great idea - just tell me: how? Where?
Usually these animals are born in the lab and live in the lab until they die, or until they go to some kind of sanctuary or zoo. For obvious reasons they can't be released anywhere in the US - it's not where chimps naturally live. Even if released in natural chimp habitats, they'd die because they can't take care of themselves, or they may even get killed by the native chimps that don't like the intruders. They are simply fully dependent on their human caretakers, and need, even deserve, proper care to live out their lives peacefully.
Robert Heinlein story... (Score:3)
It was New York, what did you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can of worms (Score:2)
This just opened up a whole new can of worms . . . and set them free from their unconstitutional detention, apparently.
Plants are people, too! (Score:5, Funny)
Precisely why are we stopping at recognizing chimps as people, except some sort of gross, obvious anthropocentrism?
Let's point out that there is an entire class of life forms on this planet that have ALSO gone through millions of years of evolution to reach where they are, and yet they are continually exploited, manipulated, and murdered on behalf of humans whims: that's right, I'm talking about plants.
There is no question that they live, breed, and grow. There is ample evidence that they feel pain, and even communicate with each other in ways that we barely understand. In many ways, they are far more in touch with their environment than we are, yet we chop vegetables up for food, we decapitate grass by the billions every week because they had the audacity to try to flourish, heck, we RIP THEM UP BY THEIR ROOTS and chemically sterilize them simply for living in the wrong place, dismissing it by calling them "weeds". We annihilate them, and even have the gall to use their corpses for DECORATION.
We are perpetuating a moral crime, yet nobody can be "bothered" because they don't have fur, a face, or make cute baby pictures.
#stopthehate
#lawnmowersaregenocide
#christmastreeisahatecrime
Re:Plants are people, too! (Score:4, Funny)
Lawnmowers are hardly as nice as genocide. They are tools of mass torture that leave the victim alive for as long as possible, drawing out the torture for as long as possible.
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To set the record straight (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part we don't use their whole corpse as decoration, just their genitals.
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http://science.howstuffworks.c... [howstuffworks.com]
http://www.pri.org/stories/201... [pri.org]
"ollan describes an experiment done by animal biologist Monica Gagliano. She presented research that suggests the mimosa pudica plant can learn from experience. And, Pollan says, merely suggesting a plant could learn was so controversial that her paper was rejected by 10 scientific journals before it was finally published.
Mimosa is a plant, which looks something like a fern, that collapses its leaves temporarily when it is disturbed. So Gagli
Better Get these Chimps Cameras (Score:2)
These chimps can get copyrights! Don't let that one photographer near them.
http://metro.co.uk/2011/07/14/... [metro.co.uk]
Whee!
Congress and Parliament (Score:2)
If the politicians in Congress and Parliament qualify as "legal persons", I guess chimps are over-qualified. :P
Sanctuary? (Score:5, Interesting)
They are people being unlawfully detained so the fix is to send them to a sanctuary? Wouldn't that be like sending groups of humans to reservations? What's next? Smallpox bedding?
Obviously they can't be left to just roam the city. Maybe that's a clue that they are still animals...
Legal Schmegal (Score:2)
Should we treat chimpanzees that way we do? NO
Are chimpanzees feeling, intelligent animals? YES
Are chimpanzees persons? NO
In may cases the way we treat animals or allow them to be treated is appalling. The same is also true of how humans treat other humans, as well. I'm left to wonder how long before the fact that I've had two of my dogs euthanized is no longer a legal act? The thought of having to prolong the suffering of or put them through treatment that has little chance of success and a high chan
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Are chimpanzees persons? NO
They are now, in a NY court of law.
I'm left to wonder how long before the fact that I've had two of my dogs euthanized is no longer a legal act?
Legal for now, but you might think twice before euthanizing more dogs.
Chimps but not "suspected" terrorists? (Score:2)
The U.S. federal government will indefinitely detain or even assassinate a U.S. citizen accused of beign a "terrorist" without so much as a criminal indictment. Obviously that's depriving them of habeus corpus and other Constitutional Rights.
This is deemed legal while a court decides to extend those rights to a pair of chimps?
Consider the implications. The government points a finger at you and says "terrorist!" without presenting a single shred of evidence and your life is suddenly worth less than that of
In other news ... election of animals (Score:3)
... is so common that Wikipedia has its own page dedicated to it [wikipedia.org].
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I'm not sure how one monkey eating another might be affected by a ruling about chimps. It does beg the question about one chimp eating another though!
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I'm not sure how one monkey eating another might be affected by a ruling about chimps. It does beg the question about one chimp eating another though!
Damn, but /. has become eat up with Parvorder Nazis.
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Take a look at how we treat those we consider lower than us. Even if they're human.
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While people are scoffing at this, we already have the legal framework in place for dealing with entities that have the legal protection of personhood but not full legal rights.
While this is doomed to fail, much of the mocking has chilling similarities to earlier fights for personhood.
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Dolphins are about as smart as pigs. The extra grey matter is sonar processing. Functional MRI has removed the mystery.
You'd think a place like /. would have put away this long dis-proven assertion. The guy that first asserted dolphins were as smart as people was on acid at the time and failed to teach them human language or to learn dolphin. Didn't matter how much acid he did, they still didn't talk.
Good gig if you're into that kind of thing.