Recently, Spanish Parliament passed a resolution that Great Apes should ‘enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured’. The argument is that as Great Apes are very close to humans in both DNA and behaviour, they should, as ‘non-human hominids’, be ‘given’ some of the same basic rights.
This curious point of view crops up again and again. It’s closely linked to the everlasting – and completely futile – quest to find something, anything, that is ‘uniquely human’ or that can ‘prove’ humans are somehow superior to everything else. I have seriously seen the impassioned statement ‘dolphins can’t make microchips’ to further this argument. People go crazy about it.
The first and most obvious issue is that not even humans enjoy these rights. They may, as long as they have the economic and political means to enforce them, for a period of time. Otherwise, not. The billions of humans that would have been astonished and overjoyed to be allowed to live freely without being tortured span from the furthest reaches of history until today. Millions are currently un-enjoying the lack of those rights as I type.
The second issue is – since when, in the name of all that is sane, is it our decision as to who or what has a ‘right’ to live, or to freedom, or to not be tortured? Are we seriously saying that unless we accord them (and incidentally never keep our promise), they don’t have them? Of course they have them. If something is alive, it wants to live. Torture and imprisonment are not conducive to this. Their right exists, whether or not we acknowledge or honour it. A budgie, a minnow, grass, cyanobacteria, dandelions. The question is, do we have the will or the luxury not to destroy that right?
Cockroaches have just as much right to life as we do. You could argue, more, because they’re so resilient and provide a beneficial service to other life in breaking down waste matter. Yet the majority of us are fine with killing them if they enter our homes. We justify this by saying a) they are ‘horrible’ and non-human (duh, they’re insects), and b) they spread disease and spoil foodstuffs. Item b) is a problem we can’t afford to ignore, so the cockroach’s right-to-life crumbles before us. It doesn’t make the initial ‘right’ any less, or our actions any more justifiable. It’s what we choose to do. Because we can. And we’ve decided we want to.
The perspective extends to almost every area of life. We are certainly not alone in usurping other beings’ right-to-life, but perhaps as we excel in it, we might be more mindful about what we tell ourselves. Most of the time it is not something we ‘have’ to do, nor is it matter-of-course, nor do our need negate the needs of whatever we’re killing or torturing. It’s just that we’ve chosen to do it. In the case of the Great Apes, a more accurate version might be, ‘we have decided that our need or desire to kill and torture this particular type of animal is less great than our desire to preserve them’. The fact that they are 99% human is, considering our inglorious track record, hardly in their favour.