“ARGUMENTS” VOICED BY OPPONENTS OF DISSECTION

- Biology is the "study of life;" so why are we studying dead things?

- "I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live... The essence of Goodness is: Preserve life, promote life, help life to achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is: Destroy life, harm life, hamper the development of life." -Albert Schweitzer The Teaching of the Reverence for Life, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, NY 1965.

- The anatomical facts can be obtained without having students dissect. This leaves the "experience of dissection" argument: Students need to develop skills using the scalpel. This argument may be valid in medical school (where human cadavers would suffice) but is hardly arguable for the mass of public school students who will not enter medicine. "Out of every 1000 students entering the fifth grade, 285 will enter college and about 40 will obtain science degrees." (OTA, 1988) Therefore, 960 or more will never need surgical or research skills.

- Many people remember classroom dissections as cut-and-slice cookbook exercises. The faint-hearted stood back. The classroom clown flipped an organ across the room when the teacher wasn't looking. The preservative stung everyone's eyes. When the parts were scraped into the wastebasket, the ordeal was finally over. Students should spend time on more productive tasks.

- "Practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men . . . tender feelings towards dumb animals develop humane feelings towards mankind." Immanuel Kant Lectures on Ethics.

- There is an inherent value in all "subjects-of-a-life;" this defined as organisms having: beliefs, desires, perception, memory, a sense of the future, an emotional life with pleasure and pain, an ability to initiate action in pursuit of a goal, a psychophysical identity over time, etc. (see Regan, 1983)

- What is morally significant depends on whether a creature is conscious, sentient, and able to experience pain. Because it is difficult to define where this line is, we must act as if lower animals are conscious and can perceive pain until there is incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. "If we are genuinely to give the frog the benefit of the doubt, we will not only take care to spare frogs unnecessary pain by using anesthesia; we will also take care not to kill them, or allow them to die, unnecessarily. We will, that is, not use them for purposes of dissection." (Regan, 1983)

- Science and educational practices must not violate human rights. To oppose cruelty, favor kindness, and require justice insists that non-humans also be included. To argue that humans have "special" rights is speciesism no different from the special rights claimed in racism or sexism.

- "Traditional studies that revolve around identification of body parts and systems at best provide a mechanical and isolated understanding of small segments of the life processes. A behavioral and ecological approach encourages the development of a deeper respect for and understanding of the living animal. . . Such knowledge and values have far greater potential for meaning in the lives of average citizens than familiarity with dissection techniques or memorization of the anatomical structure of a preserved laboratory specimen. . ." Unacceptable procedures include "collection and killing of insects for display or identification purposes." Dissection "... is unnecessary in the teaching of biology, is inconsistent with the development of a general appreciation and respect for living organisms, and is therefore unacceptable at the pre-college level." -From a brochure "A Humane Approach to the Study of Animals in Elementary and Secondary School Biology" by The Humane Society of the United States, 1985.