Animal Dissection example essay topic

Should animal dissection be permitted to continue in elementary, middle, and high schools that already use it? No way! I am totally against it! You can ban it in elementary, middle, and high schools because you really don't need it and some students won't even have a field related with this for their careers. The dissection activity should be open to those who have chosen to pursue a career that requires the knowledge of animal anatomy. People who have planned to pursue a career that requires the in-depth knowledge of animal anatomy are veterinarians, biologists, zoologists, and the like.

But they chose their fields in college, so that's the appropriate place to have dissection for those who choose a field regarding it. All living things have rights-respect life. You want to show teenagers and children growing up to be respectful towards living things and have good moral ethics. But killing and mutilating animals is no way to show respect for the other living beings that we share this planet with. This would be teaching students wrongly about other living things at a time when they are developing their own moral ethics. Each discarded animal represents not only a life lost, but also a less enlightened time when people were not so aware of the issues involving cruelty and environmental destruction.

Dissection was introduced in the 1920's as a way of studying anatomy, biology, physiology, and the theory of evolution. But we are now more advanced-we have better techniques of learning and we do not need to kill in the name of education. That was a primitive thing people did, but now we don't have to do it because we have technology and a much better understanding of the matters involving life in our planet. Back then, they didn't know any better.

Now we do, and we have advanced technology that we can use instead of animal dissection. Donald Emmelunth, D. Ed., former president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, said, "It is inconsistent and improper to require a sincere student to perform dissection when, to that student, doing so violates [his or] her principles based on a reverence of all life". The Argentine Ministry of Education and Justice said in 1987, "Taking into account that biology is the science of life, and that it is not coherent to base the teaching of such a science of the death of other beings... [and] giving priority to creation and not to destruction... the ministry resolves to ban vivisection and dissection of animals in teaching establishments". Education should not be an excuse for the murder of innocent lives! It is disrupting the balance of nature. As a counter argument, some teachers would argue that "real is better".

That's a good point, but studies have shown that virtual dissection and methods that do not use dissection are much more effective way of learning about the anatomy of animals. In virtual dissection, students have to repeat the exercise until they get it correct and their knowledge is tested at every step they take. In actual dissection, a teacher may not be able to help out all the lab groups and as a result there could be frustration. The students would start pinning labels into organs they can't identify in actual dissection, mostly due to the fact that the chemicals added to the organisms discolor the organs and tissue -- making them unidentifiable. In virtual dissection, they are helped by the program and assisted in learning the function and location of every part and students must show that they grasp the concepts before advancing. Virtual dissection is much more economical, safer, it isn't a gruesome thing to feel squeamish about, it doesn't stink and make people sick, plus students don't have to feel guilt about doing it.

If in this case "real is better", then reality is gruesome murder. The information of how living things become "tools" for students is generally withheld from them. As Jonathan P. Bal combe (Ph. D., ethologist) puts it, "If every teacher and student considering dissection were to first witness the capture, handling, and death of each animal they were about to dissect, dissection would fast become an endangered classroom exercise". But the fact remains that students aren't informed as to how they get the specimens. Many students do not know that the animals that end up at their dissection plates are often stolen pets or animals taken from the wild that were caught by men and subject to horrible methods of death. The process frequently involves the trauma of removal from natural habitats, stress from shipping and handling, dehydration, food deprivation, illness and injuries caused by close confinement and proximity to diseased animals and outright abuse.

Some methods used to kill the animals are drowning them, clubbing them, skinning them alive, pumping chemicals into their veins while they are alive as they are restrained until they finally die. The animals that are crammed and packed into very small crates to be transported to the death factories often die inside the crates before getting to their final destination. If people were to see just what the animals went through to end up on dissection plates, they would surely reconsider and protest against such a gruesome method of education. The following I have cited from a report from the PETA that tells of what was found from an undercover investigation: PETA's undercover investigation of one major biological supply company exposed gross cruelties to live animals received and killed at the facility. As many as 275 live cats were delivered twice weekly, as well as live frogs, birds, rats, and rabbits.

Video footage taken by our investigators show cats so tightly packed in transport cages that their flesh protruded through the wire mesh. Many animals crammed into the gas chamber to be killed came out alive. Cats are seen moving their paws (which are tied down) and clenching their teeth on the sponges stuffed into their mouths as employees prepare them for embalming. Rats kick furiously even after skin is pulled back from their necks to their mid-sections. Live frogs and crabs are painfully injected with formaldehyde.

There were many other cruelties recorded by our investigator. Employees cursed and jeered at a dog who crawled out from under a pile of dead dogs and was sent back to be gassed again. When a rabbit, still alive after being gassed, tried to crawl out of a wheelbarrow full of water and dead rabbits, employees laughed as a coworker held the rabbit's head under the water, pulling him out just as death seemed near, repeating the process over and over until, bored with the "game", the employee held the animal's head under long enough to drown him. One rat, still alive after being gassed, was thrown from employee to employee. In conclusion, animal dissection should NOT be used in elementary, middle, and high schools because it is unnecessary (students won't all become scientists).

All living things have rights; dissection is a violation of moral ethics. The process by which the animals go through is horrible and inhumane and you'd be murdering hundreds of innocent lives each year in the name of "education". That "real is better" in this case can be arguable because studies have shown that students learn more and get higher grades on tests with virtual dissection and methods that do not use dissection. Well here's a call to action: Demand that our schools abolish animal dissection, and use our more advanced technology instead.

Make a better use of computers and use virtual dissection software. It is more economical because the district wouldn't have to spend hundreds on dead animals year after year for each student who dissects. They'd have to pay for the software and upload it to the computers only once and new students can use the same program year after year. We should all take action and convince the board of education to change its mind about using animal dissection in our district. (Why have they even allowed it?

Why haven't they done anything about it if they know the cruelty it involves? I'd sure like to hear the principal and the science teachers' responses to this. ).