A lot of places don't bother, actually.
There can be other forms of life than what we'd consider 'animals' and 'plants'.
Though honestly I would prefer a roughly simian alien. In this case, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be outlawed.
My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.Pretty sure he meant in a legal/conceptual sense - as in, treating them as people, not animals - and not a Linnaean sense.
edited 26th Jan '11 12:15:55 PM by Tzetze
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.On the subject of aliens, my stance has always been that:
- They probably exist (because space is Really Fucking Huge, and the requirements to produce life aren't so strict that I'd believe that it can happen on Earth and only on Earth), but...
- There's probably not a huge number of sentient species floating around the universe.
- The sentient species that do exist are probably very, very different from us.
- They're probably not within a reasonable distance to communicate with us (space is Really Fucking Huge, after all), which, of course, means there are probably no alien-created crop circles, Roswell, UFOs, or any other wacky alien-related conspiracies.
- They're probably not within a reasonable distance to communicate with each other for that matter, so no United Council of Rubber-Forehead Aliens, sadly.
I agree that sentience could exist in some form, somewhere else in the universe.
Odds are, wherever that sentience is, it is so far away that it might as well not exist.
If it had the ability to find us AND cover that distance, then we are talking about a sentience so great that it wouldn't be nukes vs spears; it would be angels versus slugs.
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. -John LennonNOT! really. I read a story one time about an alien civilization that discovered FTL travel early on in their development by sheer fluke, and still used Napolean-era weapons. Thing is, it's plausible.
My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

Human Aliens, Rubber-Forehead Aliens, Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism, Fetish Fuel. All these tropes refute your claims.
I know that I, for one, would screw an alien if biologically compatible, just for the hell of it.
Aliens =/= animals, BTW.
edited 26th Jan '11 12:03:22 PM by Diamonnes
My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.