The Expansion of Animal Rights and the Rights of Species

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering the expansion of animal rights, non-human legal personhood, key judicial rulings, and the Endangered Species Act battle over the snail darter and the Tellico Dam.

Peter Singer

Author who published the 1975 book Animal Liberation, asserting that discriminating against beings solely on account of species is an immoral and indefensible prejudice comparable to racial discrimination.

Negative Right (Animal Rights)

A legal and moral protection granting an animal the right to be free from harm imposed by others, such as intentional cruelty, torture, or starvation.

Positive Right (Animal Rights)

An entitlement requiring human guardians to fulfill specific responsibilities toward domestic animals, such as providing adequate food, water, and shelter.

Tom Regan

Animal rights philosopher and author of The Case for Animal Rights who argued for an abolitionist approach, asserting that justice demands empty cages rather than larger cages, and an end to commerce in dead animal flesh.

Gary Francione

Rutgers Law professor who maintains that if animals have moral value, using or consuming them cannot be justified, and that all sentient beings must hold the right not to be treated as property.

Sentient Beings

Creatures that possess the capacity to think, feel, experience consciousness, and suffer.

California's Orca Protection Act

State legislation that bans the captivity, breeding programs, and export of wild or captive orcas.

Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act (Bill S-203)

A Canadian legislative bill designed to prohibit the importing, exporting, and capturing of cetaceans, with exceptions only for injured animals requiring assistance.

Great Ape Project

An organization formed in 1993 by scientists and activists that petitions the United Nations for a world declaration recognizing three fundamental rights for great apes: life, liberty, and freedom from torture.

Legal Person

An entity recognized by law as possessing specific rights and responsibilities, which is not limited to human beings and can include corporations, ships, churches, and municipalities.

Coverture

A historical legal doctrine in Canada under which women lost their status as legal persons upon marriage, persisting until 1882.

Habeas Corpus

A legal remedy available to a legal person to challenge unlawful detention, utilized by animal rights litigators to demand the release of captive animals into sanctuaries.

Sandra

A Sumatran orangutan held in a Buenos Aires zoo who was unanimously recognized by Argentine judges in 2014 as a non-human person with basic rights to liberty and freedom from captivity-induced suffering.

Cecilia

A chimpanzee at Mendoza Zoo who was granted legal personhood in 2016 by Argentine Judge María Alejandra Mauricio, resulting in an order releasing her to the Sorocaba sanctuary in Brazil.

Thirteenth Amendment (Animal Rights Lawsuit)

The constitutional provision abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude invoked by PETA in 2011 on behalf of five captive SeaWorld orcas, which was dismissed by Judge Jeffrey Miller under the 1872 Slaughterhouse Cases precedent.

Jallikattu

A traditional bull-taming event in Tamil Nadu that led the Supreme Court of India to extend Article 21 constitutional protections of life and liberty to all animals.

Article 21 of India's Constitution

The constitutional article protecting the rights to life and personal liberty, which India's Supreme Court interpreted as extending to animals to protect them from cruelty, torture, and mistreatment.

Liminal Species

Wild animals that have adapted to live among human settlements and share human habitat, such as crows and raccoons.

Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights

A work by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka that categorizes animal rights and corresponding human duties into three distinct groups: domestic, wild, and liminal species.

Tellico Dam

A Tennessee Valley Authority dam project on the Little Tennessee River intended for flood control, irrigation, and real estate development that sparked a historic environmental lawsuit.

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

A 1969 federal statute requiring major development projects to undergo an environmental assessment review before proceeding.

Snail Darter

A small, tan-colored, bottom-dwelling fish under four inches long, discovered by David Etnier in the Little Tennessee River, whose endangered status legally halted the Tellico Dam.

Zygmunt Plater

A University of Tennessee law professor who led the legal team that fought the construction of the Tellico Dam on behalf of the snail darter, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Boone Dougherty

A litigator and descendant of Daniel Boone who served as the lead trial attorney for Zygmunt Plater's team against the Tennessee Valley Authority before Judge Robert Taylor.

"Whatever the cost"

Key language used by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 to define the legislative intent of the Endangered Species Act, establishing that halting and reversing species extinction holds highest priority regardless of public funds spent.

Endangered Species Committee ("The God Squad")

A seven-member cabinet-level body created by Congress, chaired by the Secretary of the Interior, authorized to grant exemptions to the Endangered Species Act if five of seven members agree.

Rider

A legislative tactic where an unrelated and controversial provision is attached to an otherwise popular and essential bill, used by lawmakers to exempt the Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act.