Will Chimp Life Get Human Rights?

By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet.
Posted May 11, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/51729/

Hiasl, a 26-year old Austrian-based chimpanzee, is
petitioning the courts for human status, and let me be
the first to extend him a warm welcome to our species.

My animal rights activism has never gone beyond the
cage-free eggs' stage; it's the human possibilities
raised by Hiasl's case that caught my attention. If a
chimpanzee can be declared a person, then there's
nothing in the way of a person becoming an ape -- and
I'm not just talking about a retroactive status applied
to ex-husbands. In fact, I predict a surge in trans-
specied people, who will eagerly go over to the side of
the chimps.

The transition need not involve costly, time-consuming,
surgical arm extensions and whole-body Rogaine
treatments, since we are practically chimpanzees
already. We share 99 percent of our genome with them,
making it possible for chimps to accept human blood
transfusions and kidney donations. Despite their vocal
limitations, they communicate easily with each other
and can learn human languages. They use tools and live
in groups that display behavioral variations
attributable to what anthropologists recognize as
culture. And we may be a lot closer biologically than
Darwin ever imagined.

Last May, paleontologists reported evidence of inter-
breeding between early humans and chimps as recently as
5 million years ago, and proposed that modern humans
are the result of this ancient predilection for
bestiality.

Hiazl's motivation is economic: The animal sanctuary
where he resides has run out of funds, and, in Austria,
only a person can receive personal donations. Many
humans in this country may be similarly motivated to
seek chimp status. There are individuals who commit
crimes in order to gain access to the free food and
medical care available in a prison. How much easier and
more pleasant to have oneself declared a chimp and win
entry to the soft life of a zoo animal! Not only are
the guards friendly, but one's enclosure has been
designed with far more psychological forethought than
the average office or cubicle.

True, not all chimps have it as easy as Hiazl, who
spends most of his time watching TV. There's the danger
of being sold to a pharmaceutical company for research,
for example, but this should decline as chimps achieve
human status. We can't expect much progress on
chimpanzee rights in Bush's America, according to
Elizabeth Hess, author of the forthcoming book Nim
Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. But in addition
to the Austrian debate, the Spanish parliament is
considering a bill to extend "fundamental moral and
legal protections" to apes. Once apes achieve these
protections, American humans are going to want them
too. I'm thinking food, shelter, and medical/veterinary
care.

Another reason to make the human-to-ape transition is
the sex, at least if you're smart enough to declare
yourself a bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee. Bonobos, who are
genetically as close to humans as larger chimpanzees,
use sex much as we use handshakes - as a form of
greeting between individuals in any gender combination.
See an old friend, and you start rubbing genitals
together, with mutual orgasm serving as a hearty "How
ya doin', pal?" Plus, bonobo bands are female-
dominated, which should be a special enticement to
women investigating their chimpanzee transition
options.

There are is another, less selfish reason, to seek
chimpanzee status. Like me, you may be a wee bit
disappointed in our own species. Here we are - the
tool-wielding, word-spouting brainiacs of the earth --
and what have we done with our powers? We've poisoned
the world, encrusted it with our unsightly
infrastructure, and exterminated most of our fellow
earth-dwellers, from elephants and tigers to fish.

Of course, what makes humans especially obnoxious is
our tendency to believe in our absolute superiority
over all creatures. We alone, of all species, have come
up with religions and philosophies that declare us
uniquely deserving of global hegemony. Yet one by one,
our "unique" human traits have turned out to be shared:
Chimpanzees have culture; dolphins make art (in the
form of bubble patterns); female vampire bats share
food with their friends; male baboons will die to
defend their troop; rats have recently demonstrated a
capability for reflection that resembles consciousness.
We are animals, and they are us.

But just because you want, for whatever reason, to
attain the status of a chimp, don't assume that you'll
make the cut. Just as we don't know how the Austrian
court will rule in Hiasl's case, we have no reason to
believe that the chimps will have us.