# Are animals US citizens?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 11, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643 "2008-12-11T00:33:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/1 "2008-12-11T00:33:42Z")
One day, while talking to a left-wing animal-rights-activist friend of mine, she claimed that animals born in the US were technically US citizens. I countered that it’s impossible, and that, for example, killing a chicken isn’t murder (Although SOME organizations may disagree). But she said that no where in US law does it state that animals can’t be citizens. Please, help me! What law states that you must be human to be a US citizen?
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/2 "2008-12-11T00:41:06Z")
The [14th amendment](http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html) defines citizenship:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Animals aren’t “persons”, therefore they can’t be citizens.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/3 "2008-12-11T00:44:55Z")
Ah, ok. Thanks. But that raises two questions:
1. The 14th amendment came after the founding of the US; for that time, could animals be citizens? Also, what about countries which don’t phrase their amendments in this way?
2. Would an intelligent non-_Homo sapient_ be a person? If a few neanderthals survived, would they be “Persons”? What about intellegent extraterrestrials born on Earth? Or an undiscovered sapient species?
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/4 "2008-12-11T00:55:49Z")
I was going to say that the whole question is ridiculous but then you threw in Neanderthals and that made things much much interesting. They are commonly referenced as another human species as well so that would presumably make them “persons” if they were still around. There was probably at least one other (now extinct) human species, _Homo floresiensis_ (hobbit people), that were only discovered a few years ago on an island in Indonesia that were most likely around more recently than the Neanderthals and local folklore even suggests that they might have even been around as recently as 100 years ago. I don’t know about that last part but it was still a close call to have two human species around when these matters were defined.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/5 "2008-12-11T00:58:51Z")
Now, Japanese scientists have said that they can, with current tech, clone a woolly mammoth. What if they cloned another human species? Are _clones_ citizens? (I mean legally, not morally.)
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/6 "2008-12-11T01:00:52Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> I don’t know about that last part [the 19th-century co-existence of the two hominid species] but it was still a close call to have two human species around when these matters were defined.
I do: nonsense, as you rightly suspect. Without hijacking the thread, it is either archaeologists who know nothing about folk belief, or (more likely) the mass media who know nothing about either archaeology or folk belief. Sorry for the hijack.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/7 "2008-12-11T01:03:19Z")
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> The [14th amendment](http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html) defines citizenship:
>
> “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
>
> Animals aren’t “persons”, therefore they can’t be citizens.
Also, they’re furrn born. 😃
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/8 "2008-12-11T01:06:04Z")
NOOO!!! My first thread has already been attacked by puns! It’s… It’s… Puntastic!
On topic:
But if a human was cloned, it would be a citizen, right? And if a non-human humanoid was cloned… What then?
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### Author:  [@sundog66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sundog66)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/9 "2008-12-11T01:14:35Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> But she said that no where in US law does it state that animals can’t be citizens.
Please tell me you then asked your friend whether there is anywhere in US law stating that staplers cannot be citizens.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/10 "2008-12-11T01:15:59Z")
LOL, that’s what I said! (actually, I used pumpkins).
I tried to tell her that it was so obvious that animals can’t be citizens that a law wasn’t NEEDED, but she IS a democrat…
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/11 "2008-12-11T01:18:00Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> NOOO!!! My first thread has already been attacked by puns! It’s… It’s… Puntastic!
> On topic:
>
> But if a human was cloned, it would be a citizen, right? And if a non-human humanoid was cloned… What then?
We already have clones. They are called identical twins, triplets etc. Medical technology already helps many that can’t have children the old-fashioned way achieve their goals. The intersection of those two ideas tells me strongly that particular philosophical argument isn’t going to go very far in terms of _homo sapiens_ no matter how they are produced. If someone figures out how to produce a brand new Neanderthal baby things could get interesting however.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/12 "2008-12-11T01:27:00Z")
So what do you get if you cross an American citizen with a chimpanzee?
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/13 "2008-12-11T01:28:45Z")
What DO you get?
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### Author:  [@seodoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seodoa)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/14 "2008-12-11T01:30:32Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> So what do you get if you cross an American citizen with a chimpanzee?
Probably an American citizen capable of independent thought, tolerance, strong work ethic, and a better voting record.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/15 "2008-12-11T01:31:52Z")
> [@sailor](#):
>
> So what do you get if you cross an American citizen with a chimpanzee?
We won’t know until your biography comes out but I bet it will be interesting. ;). I kid.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/16 "2008-12-11T01:37:37Z")
Hmm… You get eleven new stores, including chimps-r-us, and a lawsuit totaling ten trillion dollars against the racial implecations of _Going Bananas_?
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/17 "2008-12-11T01:43:18Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> Ah, ok. Thanks. But that raises two questions:
>
> 1. The 14th amendment came after the founding of the US; for that time, could animals be citizens? Also, what about countries which don’t phrase their amendments in this way?
>
> 2. Would an intelligent non-_Homo sapient_ be a person? If a few neanderthals survived, would they be “Persons”? What about intellegent extraterrestrials born on Earth? Or an undiscovered sapient species?
On (1), pre-14th amendment citizenship was defined by statute plus the precedents in Common Law (remind her there is such a thing), and I’d be pretty comfrotable wagering on that animals have NEVER been considered natural persons. And virtually every nation in its citizenship laws refers to “persons” or whatever the word for the concept is in their language and legal system.
On (2), there would probably be at some point a legal accommodation to that effect, but looking at how hard it was to get such consideration for merely different subsegments of the H. sapiens population, it would probably take long. It would also depend on how the other species’ level of "progress’ compares with the dominant. Aliens parking their mothership on synchronous orbit and landing shuttles in Central Park, would likely have an easy time getting recognition. Surviving pre-sapiens humans, maybe as a “minority group” IF able to learn and use the Sapiens’s languages and adopt the same levels of culture and use of technology (a-la GEICO Cavemen, if you’ll forgive the dreadful example); otherwise they’d \*at best \* had been shunted into preserves as “savages” and given limited personhood as wards of the Sapiens. Undiscovered Earth sentient species – they’d better be able to learn fast how to effectively communicate with humans and it helps if they’re cute, or know and want to share the cure for cancer and global warming: the whales and dolphins aren’t in the fullness of civil rights, are they? AIs will probably be denied personhood as long as possible, as humans do all we can to retain the the right to pull the plug and melt the chips if they get too cocky.
**Babale** , AFAIK, a human born from cloning, being a human, would be under most reasonable readings of precedent as much a person in its own right as any member of a set of twins or triplets.
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### Author:  [@seodoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seodoa)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/18 "2008-12-11T01:45:34Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> Hmm… You get eleven new stores, including chimps-r-us, and a lawsuit totaling ten trillion dollars against the racial implecations of _Going Bananas_?
Nah, the chimp-Americans wouldn’t have the same sense of childish lawsuit-happy entitlement and would, instead, revel in the irony.
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### Author:  [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/19 "2008-12-11T01:45:42Z")
> [@Babale](#):
>
> One day, while talking to a left-wing animal-rights-activist friend of mine, she claimed that animals born in the US were technically US citizens.
Then technically animals can become US President.
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### Author:  [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2008, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animals-us-citizens/476643/20 "2008-12-11T01:48:35Z")
I know a clone of a human is human, I was asking about a clone of a non-human humanoid.
What about this: Through some technology, a human mind is put into control of a robot or animal. Is that a person?
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