Teens Weigh Ethical Animal Research Dilemmas →
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Animal Research’s Changing Equation
December 2011
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Should Animals Be Considered People? →
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On December 19, 1994, animal protection lawyer Steven Wise — a deeply patient man — was frustrated. A decade into his 25-year plan to upend the fundamental legal principle that animals are property or “things” with no more rights than a table or bicycle, he was barely making a dent.
Wise’s passion for animal rights dates to 1979 when reading philosopher Peter Singer’s landmark book Animal Liberation proved both revelation and rude awakening. “I really felt that I could not really un-ring that bell,” he says. “There was more injustice there to be fought than any I could think of anywhere in the universe.”
Wise had found his calling. His grand ambition is for nothing short of a legal revolution. He wants to systematically overturn more than 2,000 years of law by winning basic common law rights for other sentient beings we now know suffer, feel fear, have complex emotions, and possess sometimes startling levels of intelligence. Welfare laws notwithstanding, unless they are “legal persons,” to Wise they have no rights at all in the eyes of the law and therefore their lives don’t count.
He had no illusions that change could come any way but slowly. “I realized this wasn’t like a 1930s Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland thing where they say, ‘Hey! Let’s put on a show!” But on that watershed day in December — his 44th birthday — he had an epiphany.
“I woke up and said this is not going fast enough,” he recalls, “and if I’m going to be pivotal in gaining legal rights for nonhuman animals — which I thought I was, and I think I will be — I’d better get moving.”
He walked away from his comfortable 18-year law partnership and founded The Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, the world’s first nonprofit dedicated to achieving legal rights for nonhuman primates, and later the Nonhuman Rights Project.
In 2000, primate researcher Jane Goodall, who wrote the foreword, called his book, titled Rattling the Cage, “the animals’ Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and Universal Declaration of Rights all in one.” The Yale Law Journal dubbed him a “piston” of the animal rights movement.
Wise subscribes to Darwin’s belief that any sharp dichotomy between human beings and other animals cannot survive a basic understanding of evolution.
It’s what legal scholar David Favre, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law and editor-in-chief of the Animal Legal & Historical Web Center, calls the culture of, “How special are we humans? Do we deserve a place of the gods in which we simply use everything else on the planet?”
http://my.neavs.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=3801.0
BOSTON, MA—(December 15, 2011)—The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) today released results of their nine-month long study, called for by the NIH, to investigate the current and future need for chimpanzees in research. The IOM concluded that ‘…most current biomedical research use of chimpanzees is not necessary.’ The only exception was their “inconclusive” decision (a 5-5 split) regarding a “narrow area” of hep C vaccine work.
Upon reading the report, Theodora Capaldo, EdD, president of NEAVS and its national campaign, Project R&R: Release and Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories, stated, “This pivotal report is the first step toward ending all chimpanzee research in U.S. laboratories. The science guided the IOM to its conclusion that they are ‘not necessary’—a promising outcome for chimpanzees and better science for humans.”
Jarrod Bailey, PhD, geneticist and NEAVS/Project R&R Science Director noted,
“The IOM’s conclusions show understanding of the scientific and factual testimony provided. While the committee did not go far enough to endorse an ‘outright ban,’ it noted that, ‘the present trajectory of scientific research indicates a decreasing need for the use of chimpanzees.’ And, that ‘Past Use Fails to Predict Future Necessity.’ This is all encouraging and truly the beginning of the end of chimpanzee use.”
NEAVS/Project R&R believes that if the IOM’s recommended and restrictive criteria for proposals for new chimpanzee research are scrupulously applied, they will in fact end all chimpanzee use. Said Bailey, “It cannot be demonstrated that any chimpanzee research would meet all of these criteria. This criteria will de facto be an end to all invasive chimpanzee research.”
NEAVS/Project R&R’s team of chimpanzee experts includes Gloria Grow, Fauna Sanctuary founder. Grow, appointed co-chair of Project R&R, listened while the IOM webcast announced its results. When the webcast ended, she spoke about Tom, a Fauna chimpanzee who is named Project R&R’s Ambassador. Grow shared,
“I have always felt that the chimps who have died are watching over the others. Now, I believe that even more. I am so glad this news came this month—this very good news that is the beginning of the end and hope for the future of all those still in labs, including so many of our chimps’ family members. It is fitting that this falls at the anniversary time of Tom’s passing two years ago in December. I am happy for Tom and for all who will one day soon see justice done.” She added, “I am going to go now and tell the chimps.”
NEAVS/Project R&R deems the IOM report—along with other scientific, public and legislator support—as instrumental to passage of the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act (H.R.1513/S.810), the bill now before Congress that will end the use of all great apes in invasive research and retire federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuary. Meanwhile, Tom remains forever close to us as the symbol of our mission.
From: http://my.neavs.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=3801.0#.Tuo3OlUTslo.pingfm
