I'm certain in this context "rights" refers to the rights regularly afforded to human beings (as in the european proposal), not to the rights we might assign to

I'm certain in this context "rights" refers to the rights regularly afforded to human beings (as in the european proposal), not to the rights we might assign to non-sentient animals. In any case, it seems to me that we don't understand consciousness and life enough to truly define any requirement for rights any better than the meaning of 'sentience'.