Steven M. Wise, Kama's lawyer, has written the inevitable book about it, which Jane Goodall, the primatologist who documented the humanlike behavior of chimps describes as "the animals' Magna Carta." It's called "Rattling the Cage," and Harvard has appointed Wise to teach "animal rights law." This isn't the first time a university has appointed someone to teach something that doesn't exist. Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher who advocates killing certain disabled babies up to 29 days after birth, teaches at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Human Values.
Respect for human life has always been the gold standard for measuring the morality of a society, but for how much longer it is difficult to say. Frank Furedi, a sociologist, shows how the environmental movement perpetuates the notion that humans should be regarded with suspicion, even hostility, as predators of the planet. The vocabulary of our era is despoiled by an ideology of cultural pessimism and loathing of the human species. Such terms as "ecological footprint," "human impact on the environment" and "human consumption" evoke a sense of dread, what he calls "the new misanthropy." Anyone who suggests that man is superior to beast is a "speciest." Making a politically incorrect purchase is judged "unethical."
A "speciest" does not have to do something bad to warrant prosecution, or at least persecution, but only to do something perceived as bad by animal do-gooders. Driving a car big enough to protect the kids is bad; leather belts and shoes are bad. Fur is an atrocity on par with Auschwitz. Advances in the production of chicken and eggs (no matter which comes first) offer cheaper nutrition for families on a low budget, but are labeled as "man's inhumanity to animals."
It's testimony to human achievement that doctors were able to save the life of Mary Zwo, whose name translated from the German means Mary Two. The original Mary was killed at the age of five months by another gorilla. We should be wise enough not to confuse gorilla "rights" with our own. The gorillas don't. You could ask one.