Judge Rules Chimps To Remain Property In Eyes Of Law

By Amy E. Feldman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A group of animal rights activists filed a lawsuit on behalf of two-eight-year old chimpanzees who are housed at Stony Brook University for use in locomotion studies, claiming that like humans to whom they are biologically similar, the chimps deserve basic human rights, likening their confinement to slavery. And while they don't look exactly human, anyone who's ever watched the Real Housewives of any city may have difficulty differentiating them from their plastic-surgery corrected counterparts given their ability to screech at one another, overturn tables, and fling objects.

But while hundreds of pages of expert testimony supports the claim that cognitively they are an advanced species (the chimpanzees, not the Housewives), the judge in the case recently ruled that based on legal precedent, chimps can't fulfill the responsibilities of people in society (no matter how impolite the society may be) and therefore will continue to remain property in the eyes of the law.