Spain’s parliament approved a measure to extend some human rights to gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans, becoming the first country to explicitly acknowledge the legal rights of nonhumans.

The parliament’s environmental committee approved a resolution that commits the country to the Declaration of Great Apes, which states that nonhuman apes are entitled to the rights of life, liberty, and protection from torture. "This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project. The declaration, developed in 1993 by a group of primatologists, ethicists, and psychologists known as the Great Ape Project, demands “the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes.” According to the declaration, apes may not be killed except under “strictly defined circumstances,” such as self-defense. They may not be imprisoned without due legal process, and they may not be subjected to the “deliberate infliction of severe pain,” even if doing so is said to benefit others.

The idea that some human rights should be granted to some animals is not a revolutionary idea. It has gained a new respectability based on the similarity between human and ape DNA. An article on the GAP site claims that humans and chimps have only 0.5% to 1.25% difference in DNA. In reality, humans and apes probably share closer to 95% DNA similarity.

Internal anatomy of a monkey: primate mammal that lives in trees. It has a hairless face, hands and a developed brain.
Encephalon: seat of the mental capacities of an ape.
Spinal column: important part of the nervous system.
Trachea: tube carrying air to the lungs.
Lung: respiratory organ of an ape.
Heart: blood-pumping organ.
Stomach: part of the digestive tract between the esophagus and the small intestine.
Colon: large intestine.
Bladder: pocket in which urine collects before it is evacuated.
Ureter: tube through which urine is evacuated.
Small intestine: last part of the digestive tract.
Liver: bile-producing digestive gland.
Esophagus: first part of the digestive tract.
Oral cavity: chamber of the mouth.
Nasal cavity: chamber of the nose.

Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain’s penal code. Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.

 
Spain may be better known abroad for bull-fighting than animal rights but the new measures are the latest move turning once-conservative Spain into a liberal trailblazer. Spain did not legalize divorce until the 1980s, but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government has legalized gay marriage, reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education and set up an Equality Ministry.

A Spanish bishop has criticized Spain’s parliament decision. Attacking the premise of giving monkeys rights denied to unborn children, Bishop Jose Munilla Aguirre of Palencia called this law a "radical denial of the concept of a person." Abortion and embryonic stem-cell research are legal in Spain. "In this logic of irrationality, 100,000 children are sacrificed annually in Spain (through abortion), while everyone in the Congress of Deputies has mobilized in defense of monkeys," he wrote in an early July statement titled "From Evolution to Involution: We Return to the Monkey."

 In 2002, Germany’s parliament voted to add the phrase “and animals” to a clause in the country’s constitution requiring the state to uphold the dignity of humans. In 1992, Switzerland passed an amendment to its constitution that recognized animals as “beings,” and not “things.” Indeed, many leaders in Nazi Germany were dedicated animal rights activists as well. “How can you find pleasure in shooting from behind cover at poor creatures browsing on the edge of a wood, innocent, defenseless, and unsuspecting? It’s really pure murder.” In reality, it came from Heinrich Himmler. Hermann Göring, in the same vein, prohibited “the unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments,” and intimidated “those who still think they can treat animals as inanimate property” with threats of internment in concentration camps.

A ban on monkey research would save the lives of a few animals in UK , but it would leave the UK without the ability to tackle important areas of medical research. The USA, China and Japan would probably take up the scientific slack. But would the politicians then be morally consistent and stop to the UK public benefiting from any medical knowledge and new treatments that might flow from research on monkeys elsewhere?