:x today in my biology 30 class, we had to do the fetal pig dissection. Don't get me wrong, I think the internal anatomy is fascinating. I understand that it's a great way to learn about our own systems and stuff...but is killing and wasting a baby pig honestly worth that?

I decided I'd do the online dissection instead, and refused to participate in the in-class dissection, so my teacher sent me to the library. So there I am, doing my work when our librarian comes over and starts beaking me hardcore about how I "shouldn't even be in biology" and how I'm "overreacting". This is coming from the hardcore Christian woman who believes that abortion is sin and anyone who is pro-choice is a bunch of satan humpers.

So, I pretty much got told that I won't ever graduate because I'm not a fan of raising baby pigs, only to have them cut open, their parts put on a sheet, and then thrown away. How is that okay, but stem cell research isn't? At least the fetus of the human baby would be put to use.

Anyways! There's my little rant for the day. Sorry to write a novel, but this really pissed me off.

What animals have you dissected? Did you enjoy it? Do you think it's fair to open up an animal for a high school biology class, or would a virtual dissection be the same?

I dissected a beef eye, a beef heart and a frog and totally enjoyed it.

A virtual dissection wouldn't be the same to me, at all. It lacks the appeal of true practice to me, and I like to imagine I'll discover something new, which honestly, I don't have the same hype from something programmed.

mmm last year in physics i dissected a sheeps eye. and the year before a sheeps heart.

i found it interesting.. but probably wouldnt do it again.

do they purposely bread animals based on the sole purpose of dissecting them one day? :S

arghhh tell that psycho christian to bugger off.

I've dissected a sheep heart and a sheep kidney once. They all had loads of blood clots in them, rofl. And I dissected a rat once. It was a bit tricky but very interesting. I wouldn't want to dissect a pig fetus though...

Oh god...I went through 5 years of university biology, anatomy and physiology courses. I can't even count the number of dissections I did, on top of the ones I did back in high school. The ones I remember the clearest were the pig dissections, cattle eyes, frogs, beta fish, cow digestive tract (it smelt so lovely...gag) and ox heart.

Normal dissections I have no problem with. Most of the pig fetuses that high schools use, or at least the ones around here, were bred for scientific purposes and would not have been allowed to live anyway. Better that kids use them as learning tools than just have them discarded.

There was one dissection that I had to do that I was completely disgusted with, and that I helped abolish at my university. I'm a hunter, so humane kills and gutting doesn't phase me...but this wasn't humane, this was all kinds of wrong to me. If I wouldn't have been booted from the course for refusing to do it, I wouldn't have. Basically we were studying the affects of different chemicals that the body produces under different situations on the heart. We had to dope up a frog, cut it open while it was still alive and drugged out of its mind, and pour things like adrenaline over its beating heart. Then, just to add the finishing touch, we had to slice out its heart (again, it's still alive, just doped) and throw it into a beaker of adrenaline to watch it keep beating. I'm pretty sure we understood how adrenaline and inhibitors worked without torturing a frog, we were all 20 years old, we could live with just the theory.

I've never dissected anything. At the first of the year our principal gave my Science teacher permission to buy the stuff for it, then right when we were going to do it he changed his mind. At least I'm going to Highschool next year so I don't have to deal with the dumbass principal. But on a different note, I wouldn't dissect a pig fetus, or any kind of fetus. I'm fine with eyes and livers and stuff, just...not fetuses. Dx

I dissected a heart (either pig, cow or sheep heart - even our teacher wasn't sure lol). And it really did help me to properly understand the anatomy of the heart. My school usually just gets unused animals parts from butchers.

I don't mind dissections at all, but I probably wouldn't be as happy with live dissections as Arya described above...

I refused to do that too when I was in high school. My teacher was pissed and I got sent to the office. They tried to give me like a week's worth of detention and a failing grade, but I wasn't having any of that. I fought it, found information from Peta and other groups, and I didn't get the detention or anything. I won. And now none of the schools in the area do dissections anymore.

In my advance bio class we had to dissect a frog, baby pig fetus, and an actual full-grown cat. Of course, being the sick twisted person that I am, I did slice and dice each. Also, I don’t think that virtual dissection gives the same “effect” but it should be optional like it was in my school. If you didn’t want to dissect, then you did it virtually.

I am however against finding living animals to slice open. However, if the animal is already dead for whatever reason, then I see nothing wrong with it.

I've, thankfully, never had to dissect anything, but I'm about to enter IB Biology, so I'm thinking that has a distinct possibility of changing. I'm definitely going to try to find a way out of it if I have to. As a person who can't even EAT animals, I can't imagine how I would feel if I had to cut one up :(

About three years ago in school, I had to cut up a pig's heart. I knew it had come from a butchers so it wasn't to bad but the smell was horrible so I left half-way through the lesson. Haven't had to do anything of the sort since, luckily.~ :P

At high school the only thing we ever disected was an onion. Hardcore stuff, I know. At university we cut open rats to do an antibody experiment. My honours project involved using parts of human colon (nice!) and one day there were also a pair of cow lungs in the lab. They felt like dough.

Yeah, if they really wanted us to learn, they'd let us dissect humans.

^ That is true, good point :D

Pretty shitty of the librarian.

The largest thing I've dissected was a frog. I took AP Bio in high school and we were supposed to dissect a cat, but I was allowed to do an alternate assignment instead. THAT was such a joke...all we had to do (there were three others who didn't do the dissection) was make models of the organs out of clay and put them where they were supposed to be on a piece of paper with a cat outline on it.

I've disected pigs heart and eye. I loved it. So fasinating. The parts we disected were from pigs that had been slaughtered for meat.

I don't think virtual would be the same, you don't get to feel how tough the tissue is, the texture or get a proper image of sizes and such.

Yes, but PETA suck. They are just hypocrital bastards D:

I've disected a cow's heart. It smelled pretty bad but it was kinda interesting. But the cow didn't die for the heart, it had been slaughtered for the meat too.

EDIT; 'cause I can't spell.

We also had to dissect fetal pigs in my biology class. The small is horribbleeeee. And don't think they're wasting fetal pigs. Those are the fetuses found in pregnant mothers than are sent to the slaughter house. Better to educate than to just throw the fetus out, yes?

In my seventh grade science class we had to dissect a grasshopper, a worm, and a frog. We had to first pass a test about the body parts of these animals (and other related things) before we could actually dissect.. even though they're small I tried to purposely fail the tests so I wouldn't have to dissect. It worked 2/3 times. Unfortunately I had to do the frog. ._.

What animals have you dissected? I've only dissected a worm and a frog.

Did you enjoy it? I thought it was pretty interesting to see, but it smelled bad. D:

Do you think it's fair to open up an animal for a high school biology class, or would a virtual dissection be the same? I think both should be available. A virtual one would definitely not be the same, but it'd be great for those that aren't interested in doing a real dissection.

I have no problem with dissection, but I feel like there should be other options for people that are bothered by it. By the way, that librarian needs to learn how to shut the hell up. I would have felt that she really crossed the line if that happened to me.