Apparent scientific boundaries about rights are really formulas for privileging the privileged

Evidence

Wise insists that the statement “Animals can’t have human rights” seems like a scientific truth about the world but it is simply a formula for privileging humans over animals (or better, over “mere life”). However, Wise still needs to retain the idea that some nonhumans cannot claim to be legal persons. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 755