Are Chimps Destined for Human Rights?

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I was glad to see that on Tuesday, an Austrian Supreme Court ruled that “a chimpanzee cannot be declared a person.”

The chimp has quite a facial profile.

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Does he look like anyone from your side of the family or your spouse’s? He most emphatically does not look like anyone on my side of the family or my wife’s? Looking past my cynicism, it appears that this chimpanzee case may have another day in court since the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories plans to appeal this case to the European Court of Human Rights. Though this animal-rights group had pragmatic concerns with this court case???not as an attention-getting measure because of any commitment to an evolutionary-based dogma, it, nevertheless, does reflect some level of distortion in the created order (Rom 1:18-25). I am convinced that humanity, as God’s image bearers, especially those redeemed through the blood of Christ, has a stewardship to be concerned about the welfare of their animals (Prov 12:10). However, no matter what the pragmatic concern may be, the distinction between God’s image bearers and chimpanzees is violated whenever anyone seeks to have an animal legally declared as a human being. For more on this story, read
News to Note, January 19, 2008 - Answers in Genesis

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