is it animal cruelty? Options

[CrimsonArchangel]

No, this is not about fur, or wool or anything like that.

Its about science. Many of you have had to dissect several creatures for bio class, most likely. Today I had to do the frog ringer lab, where a frog has its brain removed (is it really dead?) and then we have to dissect it and add chemicals to its heart to see what happens, then add a third one that will kill it.

Now I ask. Despite the fact that many of those animals are bred for that purpose, "to further science", should we use animals as dissection subjects? Or should we just make plastic models and the such?

Is it animal cruelty to breed animals for the purpose of being cut up by students just to learn?

[Spirited Away]

If it's so gruesome for high school students to use a human body, it would be as gruesome for some students to see a dead animal. *Raises hand*, that was me in high school. I knew kids who had notes from parents to excuse them from class to read the book rather than perform dissections. Problems at home prevented me from coming up with the same excused note they had.

So then, why can't those students, and students like me who had to grudgingly stay in class trying not to throw up, learn by looking at plastic models? We still learn something, right?

That way, I don't have to feel guilty dissecting a fetal pig and still learn something rather than nothing at all. It also lessens one fetal pig from being wasted.