Strip away the goofier rhetoric of the ape-rights activists, and their claim is straightforward. Great apes are biologically very close to humans; chimps and humans share about 98 percent of their DNA. Apes have complex communication skills and close emotional bonds. They experience loneliness and sorrow. They deserve some respect.
Absolutely. I'm against the horrific conditions in which we raise our livestock, and I support discouraging the use of apes in circus-like performances. Most of us have no problem with outlawing needless cruelty. I just happen to think that "harmful medical research" is pretty darn needful.
I don't mean to downplay the suffering experienced by chimps in medical facilities. Richard Preston's excellent history of smallpox, The Demon in the Freezer details the horrible suffering of chimps infected with smallpox, and the scientist involved genuinely mourn for their charges. I think eliminating crippling diseases trumps our concern for the human-like nature of apes, just as crippling hunger would justify butchering and eating them. We shouldn't outlaw important medical research, but we should, just like the scientists Preston observes, understand the weight of what we are doing and mourn accordingly.
(Of course, I'll admit to being somewhat heartless in this matter. When I read in Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters (another great book) that Pasteur neglected to confirm that his TB cure worked, since this would have involved deliberately not treating babies for a control group. Unfortunately for science, TB was already in decline when Pasteur developed his treatment, so there's no confirmation that it works. I would have been in favor of an actual human trial.)
