Giving Them Legal Rights Like Humans Is Absurd

Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The framers believed that human rights originated from God, and through him, are bestowed onto all persons. To our founders, this was “self-evident.”

These days, however, the self-evidence of these truths is increasingly called into question. Politicians and intellectuals treat our most basic rights—values like expression, life, and property—with little regard and even contempt. “Social justice” ideologues demand that the desires of arbitrary collectives supersede the rights of individuals. And social activists play the victim, protesting for special treatment under the guise of “rights.”


Perhaps most egregiously of all, political movements now believe that human rights belong to more than just mankind, but to non-humans as well.

Groups like the Nonhuman Rights Project and The Great Ape Project argue that sufficiently intelligent animal species, particularly our closest genetic relatives, primates, are deserving of legal personhood and the basic rights that come with such designation.

Read more at The Federalist