March 9, 2001

Legal Rights for Humans Only

To the Editor:

"Once the law assumed ... that mute people lacked intelligence," Steven M. Wise alleges, but now they "have the same rights as anyone else" ("Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights," The Review, February 2). Now that apes are known to exhibit certain kinds of intelligence, Wise believes, "[t]he next step is obvious." Even if the historical and biological facts are what Wise claims they are, his position is unfounded and illogical, and would in fact take us back to a time

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