How to Answer Common Arguments Against Alternatives
to Dissection

You’re just being squeamish.

Feeling that dissection is wrong has nothing to do with being afraid or squeamish; for many students, it is a violation of deeply held principles. It is also OK to feel squeamish about doing something you find morally offensive.

If we make an exception for you, other students will claim that they have the right to be excluded from all sorts of requirements.

This doesn’t address the issue at hand: the students’ right not to be forced to violate their beliefs as part of their education. There’s no quota on how many people are allowed to exercise their rights, and you can’t take away rights just because a lot of people are exercising them.

Students aren’t qualified to determine whether or not dissection is a necessary part of the curriculum.

Students are entitled to speak up when asked to do something that violates their ethics. If they are "qualified" enough to participate, they are "qualified" enough to decide whether they object to participation.

Dissection wouldn’t be taught if it weren’t an important part of the curriculum.

Teaching techniques are constantly evolving and should be reevaluated regularly. Countless students are educated every year at top schools without dissecting animals.

There is no substitute for hands-on experience.

Actually, there are many substitutes for hands-on experience. But using detailed models of animal anatomy and computer simulations both provide hands-on experience.

There are no suitable alternatives.

The Alternatives in Education Database, from the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, and the Norwegian Inventory of Audiovisuals (NORINA) contain thousands of alternatives to animal use in education. (Most instructors who use this argument haven’t considered any particular alternatives, so ask which specific alternatives the professor has considered and rejected and why.)

The student’s claim to be a conscientious objector is inconsistent; he/she eats meat, wears leather, eats dairy products, etc.

Religious freedom means that you can subscribe to any set of views. Sadly, there are plenty of meat-eating Hindus, but they are Hindus nonetheless and cannot be forced to do something else that they believe is forbidden by their religion. If a student believes that it is immoral to wear fur or dissect animals but OK to wear leather shoes, no one can dictate a different set of moral values to that student. Everyone has the right to draw the line where their conscience tells them to.

The school doesn’t have enough money in its budget to purchase alternatives.

Many groups make alternatives available on loan to students who need them. And alternatives to dissection are more economical over time; many students can make use of one CD-ROM, for instance, but dissection requires that multiple animals be purchased time after time.