MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.
Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.
"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project.
Spain may be better known abroad for bull-fighting than animal rights but the new measures are the latest move turning once-conservative Spain into a liberal trailblazer.
Spain did not legalize divorce until the 1980s, but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government has legalized gay marriage, reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education and set up an Equality Ministry.
The new resolutions have cross-party or majority support and are expected to become law and the government is now committed to update the statute book within a year to outlaw harmful experiments on apes in Spain.
"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.
Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain's penal code.
Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.
Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the Great Ape Project in 1993, arguing that "non-human hominids" like chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.
I like the idea of extending greater welfare protections to the upper eschelons of the Great Apes, given what we are learning about their ability to think, plan for the future, and their self-awareness, but I wonder where this could lead regarding animal testing. Several of those are pretty intelligent, feeling creatures on the order of a small child. They deserve some form of recognition more than I think the average person probably thinks of them.
Are any of those used in those processes? I know we use monkeys, but the others? I can't remember.
And yet they’ll still allow the running of the bulls and bullfighting? What a fucked up set of laws.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Sea Skimmer wrote:And yet they’ll still allow the running of the bulls and bullfighting? What a fucked up set of laws.
Hardly, it makes perfect sense when you consider two things.
1) There is nothing entertaining that Spaniards do to apes that would be affected by these laws.
2) Bulls are stupid, and we eat them.
Adrian Laguna wrote:2) Bulls are stupid, and we eat them.
Mmm...
I don't think to much of the brains of those stepping out in front of a pissed bull either.
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
As for research we really dont use great apes anymore, even monkeys are so tightly controlled that they are difficult to get a hold of for anything but some brain studies (nerve control of limbs, pretty non-invasive) and infectious disease research
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
Setzer wrote:Still, I can't help thinking of The Probability Broach.
The article reminded me of what I read about that oversized brochure for libertarians and David Brin's 'Uplift' series, and the absurdity of thinking apes can be equals to humans if they can just get a litte help from us humans ("equals" in this case meaning apes have intelligence equal to that of humans, can perform scientific research with skills equal to that of humans, and in L. Niel Smith's works, be political leaders of millions of humans). Even if apes can become equals to us, it's more likely to result in a 'Planet of the Apes'-style race war than the utopia Smith and Brin have in mind.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
