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ARTICLE · 02 SEPTEMBER 2015

Should Non-Human Animals Have Rights?

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Who is a "person"? If corporations can be "persons", why not chimpanzees? Do sentient non-human animals deserve legal rights?

CanadaEnvironment
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Who is a "person"? If corporations can be "persons", why not chimpanzees? Do sentient non-human animals deserve legal rights?

The Nonhuman Rights Project is a US civil rights organization working to achieve actual LEGAL rights for members of species other than our own. Its mission is to change the legal status of appropriate nonhuman animals from mere "things," which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to "persons," who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty.

The Project has three cases ongoing, all filed in 2013 on behalf of captive chimpanzees: Hercules and Leo, Tommy and Kiko. Two of the four chimpanzees have since been moved from research labs to primate sanctuaries; Stony Brook University has indicated it will no longer use Hercules and Leo in experiments, after nearly five years in its labs.

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