Human Rights for Chimps?

All right, folks, I want to warn you, this is how things happen. The headline of the story, and this is from The Scotsman in the UK. ‘Chimps Are People, Too, Insists Scientist.’ Chimps are people, too. ‘An expert on primates is to tell a court that apes are people, in a groundbreaking case that will determine whether a chimp can have human rights. Jane Goodall, known worldwide for her study of chimpanzee social and family life–‘ She once had a gorilla named Rosie, remember that, and it died in the Rwanda massacres. Anyway, ‘She has agreed to testify that apes deserve the same treatment as humans. The case has been filed in an Austrian court by Paula Stibbe, 38, a Briton who wants to become the legal guardian of a chimp called Matthew. The case was accepted by the court before officials realised Matthew was a primate, but their efforts to have it dismissed have failed. The case centres around money given to Matthew by a well-wisher to safeguard his future after the animal home where he lived went bust. Ms Stibbe and her lawyers say he should have the same rights as a child and have a guardian to help him spend it. Ms Stibbe said: ‘Matthew likes watching TV and videos and playing games like any child, and can use signs and gestures to say what he wants. Of course he has the right to be recognised as an individual.’

Now, what do you think her political disposition just might be? You think she’s liberal? No question. ‘This is the second legal action in Europe to address whether primates should be guaranteed human rights; the Socialist government in Spain has proposed a law to allow moral guardianship of great apes, akin to the care for severely disabled or comatose people. Ms Stibbe moved to Vienna nine years ago and shortly afterwards got involved in helping to care for Matthew. He and another chimpanzee, called Rosie–‘ well, she must be the one that has the TV show. ‘– share a room at an animal shelter in Voesendorf, south of Vienna. They were seized by customs officers and given to the sanctuary after being imported by a pharmaceuticals company, which wanted to use them for HIV research. When a court ordered the sanctuary to hand the chimps back, animal rights campaigners staged a mass protest, and the company gave up. The pair, both now 26, have lived at the sanctuary since then. … Dr Martin Balluch, an animal rights campaigner who instructed lawyers to file for guardianship for Ms Stibbe, said: ‘We argue that chimps are part of the same genus as humans and that they also incorporate all the characteristics to justify personhood, in that they recognise and anticipate the rights and needs of other individuals.”

Oh, give me a break. You wouldn’t any more walk into a cage with a great ape at the zoo than you would volunteer to try to catch King Kong. What do you mean? ‘Not all experts agree, however –‘ You have to read the very end of the story to get this. ‘Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at the University of London, said human rights did not apply to animals.’ I warned you people about this. I warned you people about where the animal rights movement started, I know where this stuff goes. It never stops. It just keeps getting more and more ludicrous. This is what I mean. These are the same people who think we are destroying the planet. Now, on the one hand we’re no different than apes. We’re no different than apes. On the other hand, we’re so superior and we’re so this and that that we can destroy the planet. Now, this Steve Jones, the professor of genetics, University of London, says, ‘If you start, where do you stop? Being human is unique and nothing to do with biology. Mice share 90 per cent of human DNA. Should they get 90 per cent of human rights? And plants have more DNA than humans. Chimps can’t speak, but parrots can – should they have rights too?’

This is a rare voice of reason. But you gotta look at this another way, folks. This is bad news for Republicans, because if chimps have human rights, they’re someday going to get the right to vote, and let me ask you, how do you think chimps will vote? Hillary Clinton will be all over this. The chimpanzee vote, the felon vote, the human rights vote. There was a whole human rights organization out there, a coalition of people that their agenda is not human rights, their agenda is liberalism. Their agenda is destruction; tear down social mores; tear down traditions; tear down institutions. What better way to tear down an institution, like humanity, if you want to call that an institution, than to say chimps are human and great apes are human? Here’s another way to look at this. Chimpanzees may get human rights, but unborn babies can’t have human rights, can they? Can’t happen. (interruption) No, Mr. Snerdley, I’ve not read the chimps Magna Carta or their Declaration of Independence, but I do support the chimps’ right to choose. (Laughing.) No, I haven’t seen the hospitals built by the chimps, either. I can find the hospitals built down on the ocean floor by the dolphins. Where do we stop with this? The guy’s right. Dolphins, they’re mammals, human rights. See, animal rights has now become human. We’re just scum, folks, we’re no different than any of these other creatures. They’re just like us. I’m sure they can all be persuaded to vote Democrat.

Speaking of unborn babies not having human rights but now chimpanzees having human rights, I saw a story up here on Drudge that says there’s now a test for the sex of your baby at six weeks, a test to determine the sex of your baby at six weeks. Well, now, six weeks, that’s clearly unviable tissue mass status, according to the pro-choicers, the pro-aborts. Might not be a fetus, it might not be a baby. Now, if you think a baby is a fetus, you have to defend the idea that a fetus has a sex at six weeks, if you’re one of the pro-choicers. The pro aborts.