Chimpanzees are entitled to the same rights as human when it comes to the laws against involuntary imprisonment, according to the Nonhuman Rights Project activists and scholars, who've filed a lawsuit to fight for chimps' rights.

Chimps Need Same Rights As Humans

The lawsuit came about because of a 26-year-old chimpanzee named Tommy, who is currently being caged at Circle L Trailer Sales in upstate New York. The Nonhuman Rights Project, led by lawyer Steven. M. Wise, has taken on Tommy’s case. The coalition hopes that it will successfully be able to argue that habeas corpus can be applied to a species outside the human race, reported The Wall Street Journal.

"Not long ago, people generally agreed that human slaves could not be legal persons, but were simply the property of their owners," said Wise. "We will assert, based on clear scientific evidence, that it's time to take the next step and recognize that these nonhuman animals cannot continue to be exploited as the property of their human 'owners.'"

Opponents Of Personhood Rights For Chimps

Those opposed to the arguments made in the Nonhuman Rights Project’s lawsuit believe that it encourages a convoluted and potentially harmful slippery slope. One such vocal opponent of bestowing personhood rights upon animals is New York University law professor Richard Epstein. Epstein believes that there's a limit to one’s moral obligation to anything outside the human race.

“My simple question is this: Do we as human beings owe the same level of minimal support to chimps, or other animals, that we do to other people,” Epstein wrote for the Boston Globe in 2004. “The blunt point is that we have had and will continue to have different moral obligations to members of our own species than we do to chimps or members of any other species.”

The Nonhuman Rights Project plans to file two more lawsuits on behalf of chimps. One involves a deaf chimpanzee that is currently being kept at a private residence. The other pertains to two chimpanzees owned by a research center. If they win the aforementioned cases, the group plans to have the animals relocated to a North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance home.

– Chelsea Regan

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