Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Video: Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights
Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals’ status from “things” to “persons.” It’s not a matter of legal semantics; as he describes in this fascinating talk, recognizing that animals like chimps have extraordinary cognitive capabilities and rethinking the way we treat them — legally — is no less than a moral duty.
Running time: 14 minutes
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Rights for Apes
In 1999, New Zealand granted all species of great apes rights as ‘nonhuman hominids’. These rights include protection from maltreatment, slavery, torture, death and extinction. A similar bill has been approved by the parliament in the Balearic Islands (an archipelago that is part of Spain).
It’s beginning. We have to push harder. Everywhere.
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Yes, NZ has been ahead of the world in a number of ways, including animal rights.
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