Every now and then the biomedical community and the legal system are presented with the opportunity to rediscover our collective humanity through the lens of animal rights and animal cruelty. More often than not that lens has insufficient power to correct their distorted perception of human dignity. Having just passed the ninth anniversary of Terri […]
It is now safer to be a monkey in Spain—at least if you’re one of the larger species—than a man. Thanks to a new law passed by the Spanish parliament and signed into law by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the Great Apes are protected from the moment of conception against abortion and fetal experimentation. Human […]
A headline caught my eye recently. It read, “Why Elephants Require Legal Personhood,” and was written by Steve Wise, the president of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights. He was expressing his concern over a zoo’s treatment of three Asian elephants—Billy, Tina, and Jewel. According to a lawsuit, these elephants seem to be routinely […]
