Happy the Elephant Case: Animal-Rights Activsts Pursue Radical Agenda

The media have finally awakened to an important case pending before the New York Court of Appeals — that state’s highest court — that could upend the moral relationship between humans and animals. Indeed, if the plaintiffs prevail, an elephant named Happy will be declared to be a “who” — instead of a “what” — and found to be entitled to the same “rights” as any human being.

The litigation involves an Asian elephant that has resided at the Bronx Zoo for more than 40 years. An animal-rights activist group, the NonHuman Rights Project, sued for a writ of habeas corpus — listing Happy as a litigant — on the basis that she is an autonomous and cognitively complex “person” entitled to bodily liberty and that her confinement is legally wrong.

About the Author

Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism.

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The media have finally awakened to an important case pending before the New York Court of Appeals — that state’s highest court — that could upend the moral relationship between humans and animals. Indeed, if the plaintiffs prevail, an elephant named Happy will be declared to be a “who” — instead of a “what” — and found to be entitled to the same “rights” as any human being.

The litigation involves an Asian elephant that has resided at the Bronx Zoo for more than 40 years. An animal-rights activist group, the NonHuman Rights Project, sued for a writ of habeas corpus — listing Happy as a litigant — on the basis that she is an autonomous and cognitively complex “person” entitled to bodily liberty and that her confinement is legally wrong.