by Sue Russell
In a nation where corporations are people and others want fetuses to be, a core of philosophers and attorneys are trying develop laws to declare animals “legal persons.”
On December 19, 1994, animal protection lawyer Steven Wise — a deeply patient man — was frustrated. A decade into his 25-year plan to upend the fundamental legal principle that animals are property or “things” with no more rights than a table or bicycle, he was barely making a dent.
Wise’s passion for animal rights dates to 1979 when reading philosopher Peter Singer’s landmark book Animal Liberation proved both revelation and rude awakening. “I really felt that I could not really un-ring that bell,” he says. “There was more injustice there to be fought than any I could think of anywhere in the universe.”
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