In December 2013, Animal Rights lawyer Steven Wise showed the world how an animal can transition from a thing without rights to a person with legal protections when he filed on behalf of four captive chimpanzees in New York State, the first ever lawsuit demanding person rights for animals. The Founder and President of the Nonhuman Rights Project, Steven Wise has spent decades fighting to ensure the well being and humane treatment of all animals. His lawsuits and the movie Unlocking the Cage herald a monumental shift in our culture as the public and judicial system show increasing receptiveness to his impassioned arguments. If successful, Steven Wise and his team could forever alter how animals in and out of captivity are regarded and treated. Steven Wise joins us to share some of the harrowing stories behind the headlines and explain why animals should be protected from abuse in all the same ways that humans are. Publisher’s Note: The full audio interview between Steven Wise and Sandie Sedgbeer, host of What Is Going OM will be aired on OMTimes Radio. An Interview with Steven Wise: Nonhuman Rights Project Sandie Sedgbeer: Steven, you began your mission to gain rights for nonhuman animals in 1985, so a long time ago. What prompted that decision? Have you always been interested in animal rights? Steven Wise: I got interested in animal protection issues in 1980 when I read a book by the philosopher Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, in which he talked about how we treated nonhuman animals, how badly we treated them and how many were affected by our treatment, billions of them. And I realized when I was reading the book that there didn’t appear to be any lawyers who were standing up in the interest of nonhuman animals. So, that was in...
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