|
For decades, millions of high school students have undergone the hands-on rite of passage of dissecting frogs, fetal pigs and other animals in biology classes. Many students willingly take to the task of using animal cadavers to study anatomy. Others are repelled by the thought of cutting open dead animals and do so only with extreme reluctance.
Jenifer Graham of Victoryville, Calif., fell in the latter category. Citing her “strong moral belief” against killing animals, Ms. Graham declined to participate four years ago in her high school biology class' frog dissection project. She then sued for the right to choose an alternative to dissection. Jenifer Graham won her suit, and her case became the basis for a California law that permits students to refuse to dissect lab animals without penalty. Similar laws have been enacted in Florida, Maine and New York. On the local level, scores of secondary schools now either offer alternatives to dissection or ban the practice altogether.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the nation's most active animal rights group, recently began a nationwide campaign to do away with high school dissection, which, the group estimates, uses some 6 million frogs, rats, mice, cats, fetal pigs, rabbits, dogs, fish and worms annually. The main reasons for PETA's anti-dissection campaign are what the group claims are inhumane procedures used by some companies that provide animals to schools and the ready availability of alternatives, such as videodisks and computer simulations that provide lifelike anatomy lessons without using dead animals.
“We don't think [exempting students from dissection] is enough at this point, and finding a decent alternative is not that difficult,” Sue Brebner, PETA's education director, told the newspaper Education Week. “If the schools are very resistant to [change] then we are recommending legal action.”
The new challenge to dissection has spawned a backlash in some parts of the science and medical communities. The American Medical Association (AMA), for example, began a campaign in April to help continue dissection in high school biology classes. “Science education is under attack,” Dr. Daniel H. Johnson Jr., vice speaker of the AMA's House of Delegates, said at an April 2 press conference in Atlanta. “We are outraged that young, impressionable children are being used like pawns against the same science that has led to their immunization, dental care and general well-being.”
Others argue that alternatives, no matter how realistic, cannot replace the benefits of dissecting a dead being. Dissection “gives an appreciation that these organisms were once living organisms and, if anything, it ought to help [students] understand that there ought to be humane treatment of animals,” said William Andrews, a science-education specialist with the California Department of Education. “When you see that on a two-dimensional video screen, you don't get any sense of that at all.”
|
Read the Full Report (Subscription Required)
