The Declaration on Great Apes consists of three main points:
- The Right to Life
- The Protection of Individual Liberty
- The Prohibition of Torture
The Spanish Socialist Party are introducing a parliamentary bill to reflect this declaration:
The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for â??the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings.â?? The PSOEâ??s justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.
The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests â??the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species.â??
According to the Project, â??Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our speciesâ??s closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals.” (Spain Herald)
Rights for the Great Apes is not a joke and the Spanish Socialist party is to be applauded for their efforts. Dvorsky writes:
No one is suggesting that humans and apes are equal in terms of cognitive, linguistic or physical proclivities. I donâ??t think the Spanish politicians who are pushing for the bill believe that apes should qualify for the next vote, or that apes should be counted in Spainâ??s next census. (via IEET)
The way in which we treat animals as raw materials is sickening. Arguing for animal rights to a wider public involves being treated as a bit naive (if not simple). But begin by reading Tom Regan – The case for animal rights & Peter Singer – Animal Liberation and it becomes more obvious that the treatment of animals cannot be morally defended.
Wikipedia has a good introduction to the topic of animal rights with a bibliography.