ESEC Responds
Toledo
Blade Editorial Misses the Point on Dissection
April 27, 2000
The Toledo Blade
To the Editor:
Your April 23rd editorial,
"A Weak Case Dissected," alarmingly misses the point
as to what dissection is really all about.
Classroom dissection is often hailed
as promoting a real "life lesson" in learning about
animals in preparation for a scientific or medical career.
In reality, students who cut up embalmed, chemical-laden specimens
of formerly living, feeling frogs, cats and other animals
are only learning lessons in animal cruelty and disrespect
for life.
The "specimen" model itself is
flawed and not at all necessary or "the best way"
to learn anatomy and physiology. Computer dissection alternatives
teach multiple skills including knowledge of anatomy, physiology
and computers. And they teach about animals in their environment
instead of on a science class slab. This method of teaching
will help promote respect for, and skills in, technology,
ecology and life – while sparing millions of vertebrates killed
every year for classroom dissection.
Requests for dissection alternatives are
by no means isolated incidents. Students from all over the
country are increasingly expressing concerns that they are
being forced into acting contrary to their conscience. Most
recently, the state of Israel banned the use of frogs for
classroom dissections and other countries have offered dissection
alternatives for years. In MA, Tufts University School of
Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM) has announced an end to terminal
dog lab – whereby healthy young dogs are used for surgical
training and then killed at the end of the day. Clearly, from
high school to professional training, the use of animals is
being rethought.
As parents, educators, administrators
and legislators, we are doing students no favors by suggesting
that cutting up animals must be a prerequisite for a successful
career in science or medicine. Because it is not! Many brilliant
and compassionate medical and veterinary doctors have learned
their skills from observation and supervised surgeries – not
by cutting up animals for practice.
Young people do not need to be told to "toughen
up" and get over being squeamish. Their objections to
using animals demonstrate the strength and courage of their
convictions. Would that your editorial writer(s) exhibited
the same strength and thoughtfulness!
When dissection choice is a reality,
perhaps we will see an end to the high numbers of students,
especially female high school students, opting out of the
sciences. Science needs people of conscience yet forced dissection
turns them early from their potential careers. A 1994 study
found that girls are more likely to take high school biology
than boys are (95 vs. 92 percent), yet these talented and
intelligent young women often drop out of science courses
after being required to dissect.
As one MA student wrote, "Previously,
I’d wanted to be a veterinarian. Science classes were always
my favorite. I chose not to take a science class my senior
year and took computer science instead of a lab science in
college. I was appalled at the disrespect for life [that dissection]
demonstrated."
There is ample documentation that many animals
– cats and kittens in particular – are rounded up, gassed
and then embalmed, often while some are still clinging to
life. Others, like fetal pigs, are a forced "by-product"
of the cruelty of agribusiness. This senseless slaughter is
indeed "not a task for the faint of heart" nor for
anyone with an ounce of compassion. So-called "specimens"
are always the end result of immense suffering.
By insisting that " we have
to do it this way," or "we’ve always
done it this way," we teach our young people little more
than that life is cheap and disposable, animals are ours to
use and abuse as we see fit, and education is an issue of
control – and not a process fostering the desperately needed
social skills of ethical decision making and compassion.
Sincerely,
Theodora Capaldo, EdD
President
The Ethical Science and Education Coalition (ESEC)
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