Drawing the Line is a provocative and disturbing book. Steven Wise, a lawyer who used to teach animal-rights law at Harvard University, is a former president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and a leading advocate for non-human animal rights in the United States. In his previous book, Rattling the Cage, he argued that apes, specifically chimpanzees and bonobos, are entitled to basic legal rights because of their social complexity and advanced mental abilities. In his new book, Drawing the Line/ Unlocking the Cage, Wise explores the cognitive abilities of several species including apes, bottlenose dolphins, elephants, dogs, parrots and honeybees and discusses their eligibility for legal rights based on their higher cognitive abilities. He argues that a minimum level of autonomy―the ability to desire, to act intentionally and to have some sense of self―is sufficient, whatever the species, for the right to dignity and to justify the basic legal right to bodily integrity.
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