You are in:
- Archives » 2006 » April 2006
He Ain't Hairy, He's My Brother
While Britain's government has come under fire for restricting freedoms, Socialist deputies in the Spanish parliament are planning a bill designed to give human rights to chimps, gorillas and orang-utans.
According to the Spanish Herald, the bill calls for ""the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings."
The newspaper reports that the Socialist Party's claim is based on the fact that chimps share 98.4 percent of the human genetic code. Gorillas have 97.7 and orang-utans (EURSOC's favourite monkeys) 96.4 percent.
Thing is, because of common ancestors we also share large amounts of genetic code with dogs (95 percent), mice (somewhere between 85 and 98 percent, depending on who you ask) and 74 percent with a primitive nematode worm known as C. elegans.
And be careful how you peel that fruit, you fascist: Bananas share approximately 50 percent of our genetic code, while daffodils just 35 percent.
The fact that shared DNA is hardly an ideal foundation on which to base human rights is compounded by the fact that we don't even share 100 percent of our next-door-neighbour's genes: Only identical twins can say they're 100 percent the same.
