Brief summary of ABC report

[Guest guest]

Hi All : ) ABC news ran a piece on giving legal rights to some animals on

yesterday's news. Here's a brief summary: It was mostly positive, with

Cynthia McFadden (the reporter) pointing out that chimpanzees share 99% of

their dna with humans and have the i.q. of a three year old human.

Attorney/author Steven Wise was interviewed, as was the better known

attorney Lawrence Tribe and both decried that animals other than humans have

the legal standing of a piece of furniture.  A third attorney at University

of Chicago said that you can't compare a chimpanzee to a four year old child,

but he did not say why you couldn't.

    The biggest downer of the piece is that McFadden ended it with the

familiar canard " there aren't even enough lawyers for all the people that

need them, let alone animals " .  People always drag out this arguement.  Spend

time and money helping animals?  How can you do this when there are *people*

who need help?  Why don't they say of someone who works to help people with

cancer, well how can you do that when there are so many people with heart

disease that need help?!  It's a specious arguement.  Stephanie