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from the Better-the-Chimp-than-Corporations dept.
From the article, paraphrased:
When Steven Wise, a 63-year-old legal scholar in the field of animal law, decided to poke around Circle L Trailer Sales to assess the living conditions of the Reindeer living on the company grounds, he was horrified to discover that a former circus chimpanzee named Tommy was forced to live in inhumane conditions:
A rancid milk-musk odor wafted forth and with it the sight of an adult chimpanzee, crouched inside a small steel-mesh cell. Some plastic toys and bits of soiled bedding were strewn behind him. The only visible light emanated from a small portable TV on a stand outside his bars, tuned to what appeared to be a nature show.
Being sufficiently moved by witnessing that heinous crime, Wise and a few cohorts strolled into the Fulton County Courthouse wielding a legal document the likes of which had never been seen in any of the world's courts, a legal package including a detailed account of the "petitioner's" cruel and unusual solitary confinement along with nine affidavits gathered from leading primatologists, underscoring the physical and psychological damages such living conditions endured by a being with such cognitive capability. Tommy would not, however, have anticipated that he was about to make legal history as the first nonhuman primate to ever sue a human captor in an attempt to gain his own freedom.
Granting rights associated with personhood to non-persons has been discussed extensively before, but would be giving personhood to animals be a dangerous slippery-slope? Would be the mark of a more humane and mature society?
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Monday April 28 2014, @03:44PM
"They cannot speak. We do not know what they think. They do not know anything about our laws or courts. They would not even begin to understand the system. Any lawsuit would be without their consent or knowledge. And anyone claiming to know what they feel or want would be a liar."
This inevitably ends up with feeding children, the mentally disabled, and old people into meat grinders.
(Score: 1) by MajorTom on Monday April 28 2014, @04:43PM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28 2014, @06:15PM
Right, because that's how it's always ended up, time and time again. I think you need to do more research on the word "inevitably."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28 2014, @06:31PM
Nonsense.
When someone abuses a one year old child or a mentally handicapped person, we don't make up a bogus lawsuit claiming that the child is the plaintiff and holds a certain opionon and thinks exactly this or that. Instead we have reasonable laws to deal with the situation.
In the same way we shouldn't make up such lawsuits when someone mistreats an animal. This is just career pushing for the lawyer.