More students than you might think have been face to face with a corpse, blood or body fluids oozing from various cuts and orifices. But I’m not referring to a crime scene; I’m talking about dissections. At NSU and many universities with large populations of biology students, dead animals are used as a learning tool, and although it can be messy and controversial, it’s also necessary.
Many science students face a moral conundrum when they have to take a knife to a sheep’s brain; on one hand, they want to learn and earn class credit, but on the other, they pity the animal that gave its life for the dissection.
But dissections are a right of passage for college science students, especially those who plan to go into the medical field. Before an aspiring physician is allowed to practice on a cadaver, let alone a living and breathing patient, they must learn to deal confidently and carefully with an animal.
Some people, animal lovers in particular, believe that students can gain an adequate understanding of anatomy by using models, virtual dissections and diagrams. But these theoretical alternatives are ridiculous; students studying to be biologists or doctors can’t be expected to fully grasp the complexity and fragility of life without physically holding it in their hands. Some people say that storing 10 snakes in a bucket of formaldehyde, ready for a dissection at any time, sends the message that life is cheap and expendable. But I view the opportunity to hold a deceased creature in my hand and manipulate its body as I choose as a humbling experience.
It puzzles me that people who “feel bad” about cutting up animals in the name of science have no qualms about cutting up other animals in the name of satisfying their appetite, even though a science experiment is a much more productive way to make use of an animal’s life than a meal.
It’s OK to cut up a chicken breast but not OK to cut open a frog. But they are both living creatures that deserve equal respect, in life and death, so as long as people are
eating meat, I’ll never take their complaints about the inhumanity of lab dissections seriously. A steak sits in your stomach for a few days, while the details of a pig’s anatomy and physiology stick with you forever; sacrificing an animal for eternal knowledge rather than a moment’s satisfaction definitely seems less savage.
Some of us say a prayer before we eat to offer our gratitude to the animal or plants we are about to consume. We can pay respect to the starfish or fetal pig we dissect by vowing to gain as much knowledge as possible during the laboratory session. Biology students become both explorers and morticians in the lab setting, and we know well enough to conduct ourselves with respect around a dead animal.
With the knowledge gained from dissections, some of us will go on to become biologists, veterinarians, anatomists or doctors; these are the people who learn about and preserve life everyday. Some cats, snakes and starfish sacrificed along the way are a small price to pay for the vital services these professionals provide to the world, and every science student at NSU has the potential to become one.
No one is requesting that students offer their pets to science, so our kittens and puppies are safe from harm. But consider that the animal you choose to snuggle with, the animal you choose to eat, and the animal you choose to dissect are all the same; therefore, there should never be a difference in the amount of respect given to each.
