Request for Termination of Fetal Pig Dissection
to take place on, May 21st/22nd,
at Heron Creek Middle School, and
Any Further Dissections in the Sarasota County School System
To Ms. Kristine Lawrence & The Sarasota County School Board:
The petition of the undersigned, members of the community states: "We're contacting you after receiving word that a cruel animal dissection experiment, for a 7th grade Science class, is to take place on May 21st/22nd of 2019. We urge you to replace these experiments on animals with one of the many effective non-animal methods that are available and in use at other schools.
Biological supply companies obtain fetal pigs used for dissection from slaughterhouses; the fetuses are cut out of the bodies of pregnant sows who are slaughtered for meat. These companies also purchase stray, lost, and abandoned cats from animal shelters or "bunchers"- dealers who illicitly obtain animals from backyards and the streets of the United States and Mexico. Millions of other animals such as mice, rats, and rabbits are bred at facilities that cater to businesses and schools that use animals in classroom experiments and laboratories.
All U.S. and Canadian medical schools – including such prestigious institutes as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford universities – have discontinued the use of animals to teach medical students, and no U.S. medical schools expect or require students to have participated in animal dissection. Furthermore, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States, states that it "strongly encourages the replacement of animal laboratories with non-animal alternatives in undergraduate medical education." Today, one can become a board-certified surgeon without ever having cut into an animal – alive or dead.
Non-animal teaching methods – such as interactive computer programs, high quality videos, and life-like models – have inherent educational advantages over the use of animal laboratories for science education, translating into superior student outcomes.
Therefore, we respectfully ask that, Heron Creek Middle School and the Sarasota County School Board, put an end to these cruel practices and enhance students' learning experiences by providing only non-violent methods of experimentation."
