I wouldn't be so sure.

Just because you look at the actions of an animal and see stupidity doesn't mean the animal is stupid. It just means it doesn't do what you think is smart.

Yet the animal still lives on Planet Earth, which is surely the most cruel planet of all of them, for life must suffer upon it, while other nearby planets are barren, and do not need to feel pain, for there is no life on it.

If an animal can survive on Earth, it must surely have some sort of complex process that allows it to live, and have offspring in an unending chain lasting billions of years.

Plants are also powerful, and I think they do deserve respect and personhood, no matter if you agree.

As a scientist, you know that genetic code is incredibly complex. It produces plants, hogs, ducks, cats, and humans, and all other living things. This means genetic code itself is what deserves respect.

As a philosopher, you must know the value of knowledge and information. Genetic code is pure information in physical form, information so powerful that it can build a living body for itself, including a brain, and then live inside that body until it decides to mix with another piece of genetic code, which to us, is sex.

All beings do this, no matter if it looks like rape to you, or pollen allergies, or whatever else. The boundaries of personhood shift if you look at genetic code as the person, rather than the body and brain that it produces.