We can all agree that great apes like chimpanzees and orangutans are like humans in a number of ways, but there has recently been a push to grant great apes personhood. What? Not only is the idea preposterous, but also think: what exactly would these great apes do with a legal “personhood?” An attainable goal of the great ape personhood movement is to stop testing on great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans). This has already been accomplished in many places Germany, Spain and New Zealand have all stopped testing on primates. Switzerland even recognized these great apes as “beings” not “things.”
One main point of contention surrounding great ape personhood is what makes something a “person”? Some criteria for personhood are the ability to act (agency), self-awareness and the idea of past & future. Do great apes possess all of these? And if so, what other animals do? Surely there are other animals that are self-aware. Research has shown that dolphins are self-aware. Can dolphins be persons too?
Critics of the great ape personhood movement ask another question. What are babies? Human babies are not self-aware and they do not understand past and future; so are they not people? Do they not have the same rights as adults? Are apes more persons than babies?
I can agree with someone if they want to stop animal testing or provide saved apes with a safe habitat, but I feel that using the term “personhood” brings the argument further from that point. Why would an ape even want personhood? What could they do with it? People native to the United States are citizens who can vote and drive. Would chimpanzees be eligible for this?
The next thought in my mind is that we would be creating a second-class citizen, much like slaves or non-white Americans prior to civil rights movements. This is immoral; any person should be valued just the same as the rest. Great apes would soon be voting and driving, or there would be an uprising against this injustice! And they don’t even care about “personhood.”
See what people think of monkeys driving!
· Great Ape Standing and Personhood, http://www.personhood.org/
· Great Ape Personhood, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood
· Person, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
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