As of now, Leo and Hercules’ case is still pending.  The two chimpanzees were briefly (for just a few hours) recognized as legal persons last month and granted a writ of habeas corpus, which basically frees them from detention, and questions the legal validity of their being incarcerated.  Had it pushed through, this would have been a momentous breakthrough for animal rights, which in the year 2015, is amazingly still an iffy, unresolved issue.

Wild chimpanzees, happy and free where they belong. (Courtesy of Sciencedaily.com)

It’s like this.  We collectively coo in awe and admiration at videos of animals doing cute things.  The Internet has countless of them: frisky cats and bored dogs in living rooms, yawning walruses and talented elephants at the circus, tumbling pandas and swimming monkeys, tigers and puppies playing together, dogs howling in delight when a long unseen family member suddenly comes home.  We applaud their sense of fun and freedom, we think they’re so terribly like us, ascribing human attributes to them if only to serve our entertainment needs.  But we’d rather not look at the other side of the picture: the danger animals face in our hands, by way of poaching, medical experimentation, habitat destruction, incarceration, etc.

Policy of Fairness

We humans live by the simple adage: Your rights end where mine starts.  It’s a very solid and succinct policy of fairness.  And yet for some reason that’s not how we are with our animal friends.  With them, we selfishly extend our rights to the point that we invade, trample, and abuse theirs.  We pluck them out of their habitats, disrupt their natural way of life, own and manipulate them to our means, and basically dictate how they’ll live the rest of their lives.

Why?  For the simple reason that we think animals don’t really mind.

But they do mind.  They suffer, and they have feelings too.  The difference between us and animals is that if someone happened to step on our toes, we can actually complain, vent out, and even take it to court.  But just because animals cannot verbalize their pain and protest it—as if a dog’s yelp or a pig’s squeal or a chimpanzee’s screech aren’t enough indication of their pain)—doesn’t mean we have the right to dismiss their suffering.

It’s everyone’s instinct, humans and animals alike, to recoil from pain.  If we humans are supposedly the more intellectually superior species, why can’t we recognize the fact that animals suffer too?  Maybe because that would mean giving up some or our long-treasured conveniences and luxuries.  Our intellectual superiority has allowed us to lord it over our fellow animal creatures, but for what?  For a nice fur coat and a velvety rug?, a milky ivory bracelet, an exotic tortoiseshell ornament, or just a simple proud trophy wall hanging?  Somehow we’ve learned to appreciate the beautiful end product, turning a blind eye to the grisly carnage that came before that.

And even if animals, especially chimpanzees, are used for noble pursuits, such as for biomedical research, they would still be subject to pain and distress.  When people become test subjects, they basically volunteer for it and sign waivers, with a clear understanding of the risks, consequences, and rewards.  We don’t accord that basic right to animals, and assume they are always willing.

Animal Rights and Rich Experiences

Researchers have noted that some animals value their privacy and do not like being watched, which puts into question such practices as keeping them in zoos and circuses.  Other animals also form a tight bond with each other, even mourning the loss of a member, best exemplified by chimps, elephants, and even magpies.

But for all the scientific evidence of animal sentience, capable of feeling emotions, forming rich experiences, and being self-aware—many of us are still unmoved.  Yes, we like and share on Facebook and YouTube, but then what?  On the news, people still kill rhinos and elephants for their horns and tusks.  Just this week, a giant panda, an already endangered species, was killed and dismembered, its meat and parts sold.  As a society, how can we still maintain that animals don’t have the basic right to life.

Out in the wild, a baby chimpanzee reaches out for renowned primatologist Jane Goodall ‘s hand. (Courtesy of Achievement.org)

For a moment we came close to granting legal rights to great apes, particularly chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans, through the Great Ape Project (GAP).  It would have been a triumphant victory, all because of a few basic rights which we humans ordinarily enjoy and take for granted: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture, but the ruling was put on hold indefinitely.  And now, the fate of great apes once again is on the balance, depending on how Leo and Hercules’s case turns out.

Some people are scared of a snowball effect; that if we grant chimpanzees their basic animal rights, it’s the cows’ and the chickens’ turn.  But that shouldn’t be the case.  Thankfully, some countries such as Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden have already taken the initiative to grant basic animal rights to the great apes.

Maybe it’s not really a question of equality, as Evangelical Christian leader Chuck Colson puts it.  According to him, “It’s not because animals are equal to humans—as the animal rights zealots maintain—but because a loving God gave us dominion over creation and commands us to treat His creation with compassion.”