Legislation has recently been proposed in Spain to give monkeys the full legal rights of human beings. The bill calls specifically for, “the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings.” Somewhere the ghost of William Jennings Bryan is smiling or crying or both. (H.L. Mencken, a steely atheist to the end, doesn’t get to have a ghost.)
I’m fully in favor of the bill, although I admit that it stimulates that tingly feeling in the brain and belly that only comes about when one’s basic assumptions are being tested. The fact is, animals are a problem for us and always have been. We don’t know quite where to put them, how to treat them, or where our ideas apply to them and where they don’t. Perhaps this is because we... More...