iesika

So, my intro to anatomy class has three labs involving the cutting up of unborn piggies, which I find physically disgusting and morally reprehensible. Labs are done twice a week and are only worth 10 points each. We get two "drop" labs, which means that the lowest two grades don't count (which is kind of silly since we get 10 points for turning our stuff in). Because of this, I'd made up my mind simply to skip those three lab days, leaving me only 10 points in the hole. I skipped the first two.

My sneaky teacher decided too many people had been skipping pig labs and decided to put pig lab right after the test tonight. I should have fled after handing in my paper. As it was, I spent the duration of the test thinking "stupid stinky dead baby pigs," and the rest of class trying not to vomit.

Dissection for the purposes of learning doesn't bother me, if it is done with a reasonable degree of respect and is not performed on animals killed for that purpose, or who are a "byproduct" of the meat industry. I understand that observation of cadavers is an important part of the medical learning process. I don't anticipate having a problem with cadaver study, in fact. What I have a problem with is the casual disregard with which my classmates mutilated these animals - animals who are as intellegent as the average dog.

I had a friend, growing up, with a pet pig - not a trendy potbellied pig, but a "food" pig he'd liberated from a litter doomed to future consumption. The pig slept on the foot of his bed until it was too big, and then it slept in a dog basket on the porch. His neighbor butchered it after it wandered into his yard, and then had the nerve to offer the kid some of the meat after he confronted him about it. Can you imagine someone offering to feed you a piece of your childhood pet?

I haven't eaten meat since I was 10 years old (when I decided I'd had enough of my mother refusing to not put meat on my plate, and just started cooking my own meals). I don't wear leather. I buy vegan glue. I rescued a lab rat from my high school biology class and kept her as a pet, and used her as a prop in an antivivisection lecture. And I sat there in the back of the class and did not participate, listening to my classmates laughing and squealing and shouting things like "oops, I think I crushed his little balls". I did not speak up, though. I did not walk out. I didn't even register my protest with the teacher.

I feel sick and I feel dirty.