Critical Analysis of
“Should Chimps Have Rights?” by Veronica Majerol for 5/9/2014
“Should Chimps Have Rights?” by
Veronica Majerol explains that many people say chimps have such humanlike
intelligence that they should be recognized as “legal persons”, a prerequisite
for having rights. But the article also explains that the idea of giving chimps
rights is very controversial and that many others believe chimps shouldn’t have
rights. To explain all of the ideas needed for the reader to understand the
article, Veronica Majerol includes many techniques and details. The first of
these techniques is to include that there are many people around the world that
are for rights for chimps. The first example of her doing this is, “ A
Boston-based group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is trying to change how
the law views chimps like Tommy. The group says chimps have such a humanlike
intelligence that they should be recognized as ‘legal persons.’” Another example is when she quotes Steven
Wise, NhRP’s president for saying, “Chimpanzees are perhaps the most autonomous
beings in the universe after us human beings…we argue that judges should value
them and view them as legal persons the way they value us and view us as legal
persons.’” The third example is when she
quotes Wise again for saying, “ ‘The right that we believe they should have
most of all is the right of bodily liberty, they should be able to…choose how
to live their lives the way we choose how to live our lives.” The second
technique that Majerol uses to support her claim in the article is many other
people around the world are against rights for chimps. For example, she says,
“But not everyone agrees with NhRP’s efforts to win rights for chimps.” She
includes this, “ tommy’s owner, Pat Lavery, says he rescued Tommy from a
neglectful owner a decade ago and denies the chimps is mistreated or unhappy.”
Thus the chimp doesn’t need rights. Richard Cupp, a professor says, “There’s a
danger in making a jump to say they’re just like people, if were really focused
on chimpanzees being very, very smart … than maybe someday we can say here’s a
not smart human maybe chimps have a higher intelligence level than him.’” To
support and explain each of these opinions and points of views, Veronica
Majerol’s third technique is to make sure to include important, related facts
and statistics. For example, she says, “You’ve probably heard the term ‘animal
rights’ but animals don’t actually have rights in the U.S. Federal and state animal-welfare laws punish
people who mistreat or neglect animals, but that’s not the same as chimps
having rights to liberty or anything else.” She also includes the fact, “
Scientists have determined that chimps and humans share 99 percent of their
DNA. Like humans, chimps are social creatures capable of self- aware ness,
empathy, altruism, and cooperation.” Veronica Majerol’s fourth move is to make
sure to describe real chimps around the world. She says, “on behalf of Tommy
and three other privately owned chimps in New York,” and continues to tell
these chimps’ stories. She also includes,
“Understanding chimp intelligence has led to huge changes worldwide in
how the animals are treated. Only the U.S. and the African nation of Gabon
currently allow biomedical experiment on chimps.” She is explaining the stories
of the current chimp situation around the world. The fifth of her techniques to
support her claim in the article is to describe the strategy of the Nonhuman
Rights Project, which started this fight for rights for chimpanzees. She
includes a long paragraph about the legal strategy that they take to reach an
agreement with the judges, whom will ultimately decide whether chimpanzees will
be given rights or not.
With this article, Veronica Majerol
tried to make the reader think and feel that it’s a truly controversial topic,
this that is being argued about chimpanzees. Many believe that they should be
given rights while others disagree with this idea. To achieve this want through
the article, Veronica Majerol utilizes multiple craft moves The first of these
craft moves to achieve her goal of influencing the readers thinking and
feelings is beginning the article with a story about a chimpanzee. Here’s the
story, “Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp lives in a small cement cage in a
used-trailer sales lot in Gloversville, New York. Retired from movie work and
whatever else once occupied him, he has no chimp friends to keep him
company—just a TV. Tommy is worlds away from the rainforests of Western Africa,
where chimps spend most of their lives in trees, sleeping, hunting, and
socializing together. His owner hasn’t broken any laws but a Boston-based group
called the Nonhuman Rights Project is trying to change how the law views chimps
like Tommy.” She includes this story to give the reader a sense of the issue by
giving an example of the life of a living chimpanzee. It’s trying to explain
what’s wrong with the chimpanzee situation of the present using a story that
the reader can imagine, understand and visualize. The second of the craft moves
she uses to complete her goal is that she adds a quote for the reader to think
about before finishing the article, this is something that she has done before
in her previous writings in Upfront articles. The quote is, “ ‘those of us who
treasure our own fundamental rights, we have to think of where did they come
from, why do we have them, can they be taken away? If we arbitrarily deprive
beings that are autonomous of their autonomy, then we can begin arbitrarily
depriving each other of our autonomy as well.’” I personally found the quote
very interesting, and something to think about and that’s the exact affect that
Veronica Majerol wanted it to have on the reader. It leaves the reader thinking
before throwing the article down. The read tries to answer the question,
neither Veronica Majerol or the person that she’d quoting is telling you how to
think but allows you to answer the question according to the way that you
believe is right after what you have read.
Her third of craft moves to achieve her goal is that she adds two photos
of chimps showing intelligence and intellectuality. The first of these photos
is a chimpanzee with his arm on his chin, a motion humans do when they’re
thinking, symbolizing that their wisdom and intelligence is similar to that of
humans. The second photo is that of a chimpanzee working on a computer touch screen,
which is testing a chimp’s ability to recognize objects at Tokyo University in
Japan. He points at objects matching them with photos on the computer. These
give the reader a visualization of chimps, the issue and an insight on an
argument for rights for chimps. It also relates to what is being talked about
around the images, which is how smart chimps actually are. The fourth is that
she includes a box of information with the second photo that I described. The
box is titled “ How Smart Are Chimps? Includes information comparing chimp
intelligence and human intelligence. It simply answers the question in the
title. Thus, gives the reader an understanding of chimp intelligence.
The article definitely influenced my
ideas on chimpanzee rights. I personally believe that much of the information
that Veronica Majerol used was biased because her personally opinion was that
chimps need to have rights. But what can I say from what I know about the topic
from the article, I believe that I’m in the middle. I think the best solution
for everybody in the situation is to give him or her limited rights, but saying
that they should have the same rights as humans is sort of going overboard.
Majerol even explains that they can also not do many of the things humans can.
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