Are chimpanzees people?

The BBC today reports : "The Nonhuman Rights Project wants a chimp named Tommy to be granted "legal personhood" and thus entitled to the "fundamental right of bodily liberty"."

It must be a slow news day...

So iMember checked on Wikipedia and found that "Chimpanzees split from the human branch of the family about four to six million years ago" - so we're going to stick our necks out and go with "NO - chimpanzees are not people". But let's wait and see what the judgement is from New York.

However Wikipedia goes on to say that "chimpanzees...are capable of spontaneous planning for a future state or event."


So iMember started thinking, actually chimpanzees are pretty bright creatures so they would certainly be cautious with their money, plan how they spent it and want to ensure it worked hard for them and gave them the best returns. So when they renewed their private health care, joined a gym (to keep those chimpanzee waists trim), joined the Ski Club of Great Britain (to ensure they got all the best deals out on the piste), subscribed to The Times and became a Times+ member and moved all their chimpanzee financial affairs to Barclays, they would certainly ensure that they signed up to iMember at www.iMember.co.uk and were reminded of all their membership benefits.

As a "person", you can freely do all these things - make sure you're as bright or brighter than a chimpanzee and sign up to iMember today.