When 100 percent of U.S. medical schools don’t use animal dissection, it’s safe to assume that cutting open animals isn’t necessary to become a brilliant doctor. In fact, studies show that being forced to participate in animal dissection can actually scare students away from pursuing a career in science-related fields!
So if dissection isn’t actually teaching you anything, what does it do to you? Here’s a shocker: Studies suggest that cutting up dead cats, rats, frogs, and pigs in classrooms can foster callousness toward animals and nature.
Here are 14 photos posted on Instagram (and for some, the captions that were posted with them) to prove that dissection is pointless.
Warning: These photos are graphic and upsetting. We’ve protected the identities of the people involved—we all were guilty of using animals in one way or another before we knew better. Now we’re calling on YOU to help keep corpses out of classrooms.
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
If these photos make you sick, I feel you—dissection day at my high school sent me into panic mode. My textbook was telling me to apply pressure to the knife and cut a 6-inch lateral incision down the length of a black cat’s abdomen. My gut told me this was wrong. Where did the cat come from? How did she get here? How did she die?