When will this cruelty stop?

[dansamy]

Anything I say on this subjet is likely to cause a flaming war. Suffice it to say I am of a differing opinion.

[Susan9608]

I take it, then, Dansamy, that you have no objection to the dissection of animals. To me, it just one more way that humans view animals as property ... I don't think dissection is okay just because the animal is already dead. The same could then be said for eating meat - the animal is already dead, so what's wrong with eating it? I think that there is plenty wrong with both actions, even if the animal is already dead. For one thing, the animals *wouldn't* already be dead if it weren't for the actions of people. Animals shouldn't be used as property.

[TheAlmightyMiko]

For me, my objection to animal cruelty (and yes, I believe that cruelty to animals can occur even if the animal is dead) stems from everything Susan just said and so much more. The foundation of this, for me, is why is it ever ok to display, exhibit, kill, maim, restrain, etc. any living creature that is under our complete and total mercy? We literally have the power to choose whether an animal lives or dies. Why do we have this power over animals when it is illegal to weild the same power over members of our own species? Because we are human and they are not? Granted in some circumstances this is a compassionate choice, but in others it is not. My sister-in-law put down her purebread puppy who was suffering from level one hip dysplacia (sp?), which by the way is fully treatable with proper mediction, because they did not feel they could care for it. Now, instead of giving it to the many many loving homes that were willing to have cared for it (incuding mine), she decided to put him down. Why? Because her breeder had said that if the dog was put down, they would replace it, but if it was given away then they claimed no responsability. She also dumped a cat who had a bladder problem at a friend's farm claiming that now if it died, its blood was not on her hands. Is this responsable or compassionate? Is this what we have reduced ourselves to in the view that animals are property or entirely replaceable; if it is not perfect, then replace it with one who will look and act the same; surely then that means it IS the same ((sarcasm)).
Animals rely on us to have better judgement and to treat them as living beings, not as something we use to entertain us or satisfy selfish desires. It is a matter of respecting life; too many people assume that animals are not "intelligent" animals that deserve the same respect and treatment that humans receieve because of our "superior" intellect. When it comes down to it, humans feel justified in extorting other living creatures to satisfy their own means. We as a species are all, in one way or another, selfish in this manner. Unfortunately some more than others. What I don't understand is why, after we have mastered the technology that we already have, find the need to dissect a once living, sentinent creature, just so that a bunch of teenagers can be "grossed out" and see what it looks like inside. The same thing can be replicated in a simple virtual dissection, that would teach them the same information about the functions of the animal's body without having to sacrifice the animal themselves.
Even if they are already dead, again, to me, a needless display and descecration of their corpses is downright vile and disrespcetful. How would you feel if you had lost an animal who then ended up at a shelter, wound up being put to sleep needlessly, and then the next day ended up on some 17 year old's desk ready to be pulled apart like meat? Bet that wouldn't sit too well with anybody here. The only purpose I see behind animal "dissection" is in necoprosies/autopsies; to discover unkonwn factors in illness to better the lives of those still living. This is not needless, this serves a purpose. But compare this necessary action to the events at my old highschool where after the dissections one of my then "friends" described to me how he and his friend had cut the tounge off their cat just to see "what would happen".
This is what these animals are destined to become? Entertainment to disturbed people whose purpose is not to discover and remedy illness, discover the functions of the body, become a doctor/vet, but instead be amused by the corpse of an animal who cannot protect themselves, both in life or in death. It is in my opinion that at the public school level, disection teaches these children nothing. Period. Those who are not interested in learning will not learn, they will make a mockery of the lives of these animals. And while I know there are many many students who are genuinely interested in veteranary or medical studies, the vast majority are not. They just think it is "fun" to cut into the flesh of a living being.
I take it back, for these students, the ones who have no interest in medicine or the welfare of animals, disection does teach them that an animal's life is not to be valued, but instead is disposable. Completely at our discretion, completely at our mercy. It teaches that they are things to be cut up and thrown away, and that in the end, we are not companions after all, but masters and servants. I would love to understand how anyone who has had a pet in their life could stand to see a cat -or any animal for that matter- cut to pieces and devalued like they are year after year in my old high school.
I know I couldn't.

[TheAlmightyMiko]

I apologize for the length of my last post, I just couldn't contain myself.

And Piglet, I couldn't believe the shelter would hand them over either, but the way it was explained to me was that either they cremated them or donated them to "science." In their view the latter served more "purpose" then cremating them respectfully, as though they hadn't already been disrespected enough in their lives...

[dansamy]

No. I have no problem with dissection. We dissected cats in my college A&P class. We were respectful in our handling of the bodies, as the majority of our class are all going into medical professions. The dissections were not for our "amusement". They were for our learning. And although we dissected cats, while we will be working on humans instead, through comparative anatomy, much of what we learned is applicable.

I also eat meat. When I grew up, we spent quite some time in a rural area where the local market sold locally slaughtered meat. I much prefer its taste to that of the "commercial" meat sold in my local chain supermarket.

I have no gripe with vegetarians. It is a personal choice made by an individual for him/herself. It is simply not my choice. I was raised in a manner whereupon I view some animals/species as pets and others as food.

[Susan9608]

The wonderful thing about being an adult is that you are no longer bound by the things you were brought up with. You have the capability to change the way you do things; you no longer have to do things just because your parents said so or because you were brought up to think certain things. One of the greatest things about being an adult is being able to make choices for yourself and being able to take responsibility for those choices ... without having to resort to "Well, I was brought up that way."

[TheAlmightyMiko]

I apologize if I did not make it clear in my reply that all of the disrespectfulness and immaturity I have witnessed in regards to disection was in regards to high school children, not adults. If the dissection is in a college course, then one would hope that the individual taking the course has made the conscious decision to follow through with a career in that particular field and is not being forced to simply earn another science credit, as were the majority of the people in my class. They were in no way respectful and were forced to dissect, period. For all except one girl in that class, who wanted to pursue a career in medicine, that class was merely filler, and so they did not view dissection as a learning tool, but instead were disrespectful to the animals. Now, while I believe I have been clear as to why I do not agree with dissection, I also believe that in your taking a college course in which dissection was a requirement, you were also training for a potential career. The difference I see here is that you made a choice and were in pursuit of higher learning, the highschoolers thought it would be "fun" to cut up an animal (exact words from one of my friends.) The main difference I see here is in mentality and maturity. I was a bit passionate before, but let me be clear: if you are mature enough to differentiate between learning something valuable from the dissection and merely "cutting up an animal to see what's there", then that is in the end your choice. I still am queasy at the thought, but that is my choice. I cannot and will not condem you for being comfortable with dissection. I'm sorry if I offended you, but as I said, I was referring to the uselessness of dissection in highscool when it is used as a forced tool where children learn to disrespect the animals rather than to understand that they are meant to learn. Clearly you are mature enough to differentiate, and while I still firmly believe in what I posted, please know that I see your circumstance as different from the one I described.

[dansamy]

Miko, I am not offended in any way. You simply are possessed of a differing opinion. I do not condemn nor condone you for it.

Susan, yes, I was raised a particular way and as an adult I do have the option to follow a different course. However, I view animals as something that Man was given dominion over by God. While I do not perceive them as unintelligent, I do see them inferior to Man's superiority. You, if you are a radical, may term that "specism" and make it equivalent to racism. I am not now, never have been, and do not foresee myself becoming a vegetarian. It is not a choice that I will select. I am perfectly capable & well-disciplined enough to forego meat if I chose to do it, but I choose not.

To the OP with the guinea pig dissection photo, the photo is indeed quite graphic. Who knows? This photo may specifically have come from a veterinary school where they were learning species-specific anatomy. It is my understanding that cavy anatomy, particularly the male reproductive, is laid out rather differently than that of a cat or dog.

[Sparky]

being a non-spiritual person, i believe that animals and humans are merely self sustaining chemical systems. so in all logic i have no objection whatsoever to the dissection, or eating of any animals.

i do however disagree with hunting for sport, as it is a waste of resources

[dansamy]

Sparky, you certainly have a unique viewpoint there!

Yes, hunting for sport is a waste. As is fishing for sport. My father, a hunter and fisherman, used almost all parts of the animal. We had several leather/fur blankets from his kills. Antlers make nice coat and/or gun racks. Very little of the animal went to waste. He also actually hunted the animal, rather than setting up camp in a tree stand to wait for it to come to him.

[sasha]

I think that if an animal is obtained after it is dead of natural causes than that's ok. I don't personally see a body as anything more than molecules.

I have worked with human and animal remains, I have an undergraduate degree, and will (hopefully) be continuing on to medical school after working for a few years. For those of you upset about the animal not having a choice, i think that if a family decides to donate their cat, then so be it, as long as they loved it while it was alive. We donated one that was very special to us after it had to be put to sleep. My mother is dying from bone cancer, and has talked about donating her own body. Is the problem really with what is done with the body, or the quality of life and method of obtaining the animal?

I don't eat meat, and am strongly opposed to certain animal testing and experimentation, I have refused to dissect animals when I thought it wasn't needed, and have also refused to dissect animals obtained from the fur trade, etc. But after having worked with fakes that cost thousands in the biology dept in college, and comparing them to the real thing, I thought the fakes were usless, and we had fakes that were the top of the line. For some things they have good simulations. I take the issue very seriously, and when I discovered the cat I had was pregnant, I dissected the babies too, and learned a lot doing it. Maybe you think I'm heartless, but scientists who intend to seriously study certain things, or for people who choose pursue certain careers, that experience can be invaluable. I do think it needs to be kept out of schools and courses with people who haven't already made that commitment, like basic level courses full of freshman just trying to fulfill a requirement. I welcome models, etc, but for certain purposes, I just haven't seen good ones.

[Sparky]

in all logic, human beings killing something, is as natural as an owl eating a mouse. if an owl could dissect a mouse to figure out how to keep other owls health, i'm sure it would.

logically the guinea pig being dissected in the picture, died of "natural causes"

[CavySpirit]

in all logic, human beings killing something, is as natural as an owl eating a mouse. if an owl could dissect a mouse to figure out how to keep other owls health, i'm sure it would.

Sparky, by your logic, murder (or 'self-sustaining chemical systems' terminating other 'self-sustaining chemical systems') is also perfectly natural and therefore acceptable. Anything and everything goes. Why are you even bothering to participate on this thread?

[piggielover92]

I have already had to dissect a worm in my jr. high school. That was sickening enough but my school didn't really give us a choice about that. I now, fortunatly, can choose wether or not we want to dissect a frog. My dad is pressuring me into dissecting it even though I think it is worng. My dream is to someday become a vet and my dad says that I won't be able to become a vet unless I dissect things in school. Is this true? If not, what should I do? How can I convince him it I feel that this is a moral issue for me?

[dansamy]

Piggielover,

You will probably be required to dissect in your undergrad biology classes as well as your veterinary school anatomy & physiology classes. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, there aren't any very good models that approximate real flesh. Pictures, diagrams and models are all "perfect", while living beings are not. Practice locating anatomical landmarks on a dissection is very good preparation for the realities you will see in surgery. It also good for the "feel" aspect. Not to deliberately disgust anyone here, but cutting through real flesh and bone and realizing just how much or little force is required is helpful and practical to what you will really be doing when you are a practicing professional. It takes practice to properly perform any procedure. I would rather that the practitioner botch it whilst practicing on something/someone that will not realize any harm from it rather than botching it on a living, breathing creature entrusted to the practitioner to heal or make whole. Make sense? I hope so. Think of it this way. If you are going in for surgery, would you want your surgery to be the 1st one the doctor has ever done? Not me. I'd rather he practice it on a cadaver 1st. Then preferably on other people while under the supervision of a senior surgeon.

[sasha]

I took a class that was very heavily dissection based. I spent about 20 hours each week for two months with a cat corpse, and hours reviewing my notes diagrams at home. It was while earning my pre-med degree. Out of a class of 20 seriously committed students, me and about 4 others got an "A" or "B". We got every ounce of knowledge that was there to get; we cared very much about learning about its anatomy to know how to spay and prevent unwanted cats in the future, and we located its saphenous vein to know where one of two veins that are used in replacing blood vessels in the heart are. It will actually help us save lives and do valuable research.

The cats were not killed for the purpose of dissection, some were from shelters, but they were killed because of overpopulation, so I personally think that it is a good thing that they will be used to educate future vets who can help stop the problem.

In high school it is absurd to think that dissection is necessary, you don't go into enough detail to get anything you couldn't get from a model or book, so it is a waste of life. Even at the university level, there are some situations where using computer simulations are better than doing it yourself: in animal physiology there is a program that simulates a rat ekg and action potential in heart muscle, that allows you to see the effects of different drugs. When a rat is killed, its heart continues to beat for a while, and you can gas a rat, cut it open, and do this experiment yourself, but its difficult to get it to work right, there is no reset button, you only get to try a few things before it stops working, the results still sometimes aren't representative or educational, and the equipment is expensive, and for a college that doesn't have a need for it otherwise, is a waste.

In vet school you will have to dissect animals; we donated our cat to a school when it died, because we wanted the next generation to be better educated, and maybe save someone else's cat. We are glad that people like you could learn from it. So when you get to that educational level (where you can actually get something from doing a dissection) I would recommend researching where the specimens are from, and as long as it is something like a donated, loved, put to sleep pet that lived a good life, wasn't killed for no reason, and could help you learn, then go ahead. If you need any help with finding alternatives to keep your grade up, or convincing dad to lay off, I can help you track down good sources of pictures that other people have from doing necropsies, etc, and if your father has any questions about whether missing this will hurt your chances, I have free unlimited long distance, and will be happy to talk to him.