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https://aeon.co/essays/why-nonhuman-beings-should-be-granted-personhood-rights>
"Happy is a 51-year-old Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo in New York City. But
she didn’t start out there. She was born in the wild then kidnapped – taken
away from her family as a baby in Thailand – and sold, along with six other
calves, to Lion Country Safari, Inc in California. In 1977, Happy and another
elephant, Grumpy (all were named after the seven dwarfs in Snow White) were
relocated to the Bronx Zoo to be part of a new exhibit. There, through a good
part of the 1980s, she was forced to give rides to visitors, engage in a staged
‘tug of war’ with Grumpy, and perform unnatural behaviours like hind-leg stands
and sit-ups. Then, in 2002, Grumpy was attacked by two other adult female
elephants there, Patty and Maxine, and was euthanised. Happy was separated
permanently from the two and a young female, Sammie, was brought in to keep her
company; but not long after, Sammie was euthanised after suffering kidney
failure. And Maxine died in 2018. Now, in order to ‘protect’ her, Happy is kept
separately from Patty.
Had she not been abducted, Happy would be living in a complex, strongly bonded
social group of other females and their children, enjoying life as a mother,
daughter, cousin and friend to others. With her group, she would traverse 8-12
km every day searching for a broad range of different foods to enjoy. And, as a
highly intelligent autonomous being, she would have been in charge of her world
and made decisions about every aspect of her life – what to do, where to go,
whom to mate with, whom to spend time with, what to eat, how to raise her
children: all of it. Instead, she lives alone inside a small holding facility
lined with cages and is let out into a one-acre yard.
And so it is that, on 18 May 2022, Monica Miller, consulting attorney with the
Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), walked into the New York Court of Appeals and
argued that Happy should be granted legal personhood by acknowledging her
fundamental right to bodily liberty (freedom from arbitrary and unreasonable
restraint upon an individual). And while Happy lost her bid to be recognised as
someone with rights, two judges dissented with impassioned opinions decrying
Happy’s lack of freedom and our ongoing violation of her dignity, making it
clear that our society is fast approaching a time when it will be impossible to
ignore the autonomy and personhood of other animals. The Nonhuman Rights
Project continues its battles."
Via Ilene Serlin on the
NextNow mailing list.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
