In Wesley
J. Smith’s article, he describes attempts to make a primate be declares a “person”
is ridiculous, and I have to agree, to an extent. There are many differences between a human
and an orangutan, but one in particular is the needs and wants. My reasoning is based off of my ethics class I
had last semester. An orangutan has no
use for many human rights such as freedom of speech. Therefore, an orangutan becoming a “person”
who holds the rights of a human is, in fact, ridiculous. Because of this, I believe it is a much
better idea to have a separate set of rights for animals that would include
things like the right to life or the right to not be imprisoned like what was
stated in the articles.
The
following article was written by Alisa Mullins and was shown from the opposite
side as Smith’s article. It was pretty
interesting seeing the same information in both yet written from opposing
viewpoints. After reading this one, I wasn’t
sure if Smith was overreacting or if Mullins is changing wordings. What I mean is Smith was talking about the situation
like the orangutan was going to be declared an actual person, like a human. However, in Mullins’ article, it calls the
orangutan a “non-human person” which changes things significantly. For that
reason, my above response to Smiths article shall remain separate from this one
and in its own context. If this is the
case, I could side with Mullins in calling the orangutan a “non-human person”,
however, even using that word “person” is precarious. One would have to dig into and argue the
definition of a person and that would be another whole issue that would distract
from the point. Honestly, I think it
would be much simpler if people would just see that non-human animals exist on
this world just like us and deserve some kind of respect. That way, we can avoid the
whole “person” issue and his can be resolved nicely without using unnecessary
roundabout ways. Unfortunately though, I do not see humanity doing this anytime
soon.
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