Going Ape Over Human Rights
Posted on July 12, 2008
Filed Under News Flash |
Here’s a headline that caught my eye a couple of days ago:
Great Apes Should Have Human Rights, Say Spanish MPs
My immediate reaction was to double-check the calendar. You know, if it were April 1st, I could dismiss the whole thing as a reporter just monkeying around with a catchy headline. But the article wasn’t a joke. According to the report, a number of the members of parliament (MPs) in Spain have been lobbying the government to adopt something called the “Great Ape Project” (GAP).
What’s that? This article didn’t elaborate so I did a little digging around. The roots of GAP go back some fourteen years. In 1994, Peter Singer, professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, author of Animal Liberation, and the man credited as the father of the modern animal rights movement, co-edited a book called The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. In it, Singer presents essays by various biologists, lawyers, anthropologists, and fellow philosophers pitching the idea of welcoming apes into “the community of equals.” How?
By extending three basic human protections to non-human counterparts:
1. The right to life
2. Protection of individual liberty
3. Prohibition of torture
If passed, the measure would confer these basic human rights to bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans–who are, according to Pedro Pozas, Director of GAP in Spain, our “evolutionary comrades.” Furthermore, the Great Ape Project desires to extend the right of due process of law to apes. You might want to read that again.
Through an Ape Advocate, apes could have their day in court if they are unfairly imprisoned or harmed. I’m not making this up. Tell me that wouldn’t throw a monkey wrench into the already burdened court system.
In terms of protecting the “individual liberty” of apes, this means great apes could no longer be placed into captivity at the zoo or used in a circus routine. Likewise, great apes would not be permitted for use in biomedical research. (I’m unsure how Mr. Singer reconciles this declaration with the fact that two years ago he endorsed the limited usage of monkeys for research into finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease.)
Don’t get me wrong. I believe the treatment of animals by humans must reflect respect and care. At the same time, the move to extend human rights and legal rights to tree-dwelling primates as if they are human lacks common sense.
There’s more.
If passed in Spain as some expect it will next year, the GAP measure under consideration states that the use of apes in TV commercials or in films will become a crime. I’m not sure why using monkeys in movies or commercials is an issue. There are long lines of humans seeking work in both of those industries.
What is unclear is whether or not the MPs also want to ban the likeness of apes in film in order to be sensitive. Will movies like Planet of the Apes and King Kong soon be banned in Spain? Will kids still be allowed to “monkey around” with each other on the “monkey bars”? Or, is such language demeaning?
But I digress.
Do you see an irony immerging here?
Activists want to grant apes “human rights” at a time in world history when human life and liberty are threatened. What about the right to liberty for children and women forced into slavery or prostitution? What about the rights of a preborn human baby? Where is the outcry over the human rights violations in various hot spots around the world? Take the genocide in Darfur. Estimates by various world and health organizations place the number of people who have died between 200,000 and 400,000 with another two million driven from their homes.
Evidently the same zeal driving the protection of apes isn’t extended in the fight to protect humans. Frankly, I take issue with the Great Apes Project or any movement that would give animals “human rights” and the due process of the law. Think about where this way of thinking leads: If Spain grants apes human rights, what happens if someone were to accidentally kill a monkey by running it over with a car? Would they be charged with involuntary ape-slaughter and be forced to serve jail time?
That’s a fair question.
And what about Spain’s long and controversial tradition of bull fighting and running with the bulls? Don’t bovines have rights, too? Actually, that’s part of the longer term deal. If you examine the agenda of those who lobby for GAP, you’ll find that granting human rights to apes is just the first step toward viewing all animals as being no different than people. Apes today, antelopes tomorrow, ants the next day. According to these activists, animals and human beings are just one big happy extended “superfamily.”
You might wonder why advocates like Peter Singer are driven to blur the line between humans and animals. The answer may surprise you. It lies in the fact that Mr. Singer, a self-professed atheist, believes that God does not exist. As such, he is uncomfortable with the notion that men and women are “created” in the image of God, as Christians and Jews believe. Eliminating the distinction between humans and animals is consistent with a view of life devoid of a Creator God who, in fact, gave mankind a special place in the created order.
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6 Responses to “Going Ape Over Human Rights”
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Jim Daly is the President of Focus on the Family. He has been married to his wife, Jean, since 1986. They have two sons. The Daly family resides in Colorado Springs. Finding Home represents Jim's musings on work, family and faith.
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Jim,
Within this world there is always a struggle between the powerful and human rights. Our slide did not begin with abortion (although abortion is a good example of the symptoms) it always begins when people devalue others for any reason.
What made this country great was the idea that all men and women are given certain rights by their creator. These rights are granted each person regardless of their citizenship, family name, religion,, station in life, or age because God gave them to all not just the few. When we value anyone less than human to remove these rights we start down a spiral. This has happened throughout history even in this country.
The founding fathers knew all to well that we must protect ourselves against our own nature. Our first challenge as a nation was slavery, which the founders of this nation capitulated because of economic reasons. The results were a civil war to correct what should have been done in the beginning. Not only did this nation face a war, but it took over a hundred years to begin ending racism.
Today we have an equal challenge before us. Today our government has decided that some people do not deserve the basic human rights our founders believed were given to all men. I am talking about the political prisoners we are housing in Guantanamo Bay. What few Americans understand is they are being held with trial, without the chance of a trial to prove of disprove their innocence. This flies in the face of what this country stands for. In the name of safety and national security, we have decided that some people do not have the same rights granted to them by the creator.
You may be overly concerned about this. I’m not going to lose sleep over advocates for “ape rights” until I see a gorilla applying for a driver’s license or registering to vote.
Actually, the more Christ-like one is, the more they care about ALL life, animals included! This doesn’t mean you must become a vegetarian, but take a look at the recent National Geographic and note how gorillas have been brutally treated in parts of the world. God would NOT approve.
Humanity is to be a caring steward of the earth, which includes concern for the creatures who cannot comprehend what is going on around them sufficiently enough in order to fend for themselves.
Whether or not Mr. Singer is a Christian (or even an atheist) isn’t really the crux of the issue. He is a scientist in a field that entails caring for a particular area of God’s creation, and obviously feels primates should be protected when subjected to cruel treatment (sometimes due to remnants of greed in the human race)or become endangered.
“To whom much is given, much is expected.” This scripture can be soundly applied in many contexts.
With respect,
Charmaine
Regarding M Todd’s last paragraph, especially “being held without trial”. They are being held without trial because they are, in fact, enemy combatants. The German pow’s we held within the U.S. during WWII were NOT given constitutional rights. They were recognized as agents of a foreign entity that was bent on the destruction of our nation and were held until the end of hostilities then returned to their homeland. Any other treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo is foolish, irrational and further imperils our nation.
P.S. to previous comment…
On the cross Jesus may have died for the human race, but He saved the lives of more than a few sheep in the process! No need for man to resort to the sacrifice of a lamb(or any other animal)ever again in hopes of appeasing God. When receiving communion, Christ’s “ultimate sacrifice” is remembered, some say mysteriously “reenacted” and thus “reoffered.”
I just cannot imagine Jesus in a laboratory sticking electrodes deep into a monkey’s brain or injecting some potentially harmful substance into their systems in order to observe results, even if subjecting primates to such scientific research might be well-intentioned.
Charmaine
Didn’t Rom 1 mentioned that in the LAST days Rom 1:25 men would do this.Who changed the truth of GOD into a lie, and worship and served the creature more than the CREATOR, WHO is blessed forever.
Andrew 37
I’m a born again Christian, and I don’t believe any animal should be killed, just for the entertainment purposes only. I don’t believe another animal should be injured, cut on and or tested on in some lab.
I believe all animals should be treated with love and respect because God created them. No person should beat or mistreat an animal just because they can, for God created all creatures.
I don’t believe animals are equal to mankind at all. Hopefully you can figure that out.
I also believe that an animal can be killed for food, but not just for the sport of killing. The hunter must eat all the meat and use the fur, if possible for his/her clothing.
I don’t believe in evolution, that’s right, I used the word (believe), evolution is a theory, and it is not based on sound scientific evidence.
Evolution, is really a manmade religion. Evolution is a very messed-up theory, that makes no sense at all.
There’s so much fraudulet and deceptive science built around the theory of evolution, it’s not even funny.
You only have to be true to science, to realize this deception runs all the way through evolutional theory.
It’s really mankind worshipping of self, rather than the worshipping the true and living God, the creator of all things.
It’s very interesting how evolution, plays a huge part in our politics today. It’s all about humanism and the worship of mankind.
Humanism, teaches us, that mankind can do whatever they want to, except for the so called, manmade moral rules.
I find this very interesting, that liberals can mandate certain humanistic moral laws, but then, how can you have a right and wrong when there is no God to obey? It just doesn’t fly, now does it?
Why is murder wrong? when supposedly without God being in the picture, why shouldn’t I be able to murder/kill anybody I choose to?
The liberals, politics, Democrats are teaching evolution/humanism and socialism, and that there is no God. So, why should we even care about each other? Isn’t it all about the strong getting rid of the weak. Only the strong will survive, right?
Humanism devalues life, this is what brings about legalizing abortion laws. This is what brings about people murdering each other for their new Nike shoes - [Michael Jordan's].
If there is no God, then where does mankind get their inalienable rights from? With there being no God, then there is no rights given to mankind. Therefore, mankind can do whatever they want to, without answering to anybody.
There’s just life and then there’s death, nothing else, you just turn to dust, your life serves no higher purpose.
Please stop believing in Dumb science, it’s time to realize that there is a true and living God. It’s He that created all that you can see, and even that, which is unseen, He has created.
Thank you,
Keith