The billboards received extensive media coverage, including a report on the local ABC affiliate (video). ~ Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Attack ads against NDSU and Sanford are popping up in Fargo, criticizing a joint program that uses live animals to help train first responders. A medical advocacy group is taking its plea public, claiming NDSU and Sanford are violating ethical standards by using, and killing, animals for the sake of education. ~ KVRR NEWS

We wonder if the physicians and advanced practice providers get positive feedback from the animals they kill?

This statement is akin to saying that the practice of slavery was continued based on positive feedback from farmers and slave owners who cared for family members. Such statements are biased and self-serving; they disregard the opinions of the victims. It is obvious that animals object to suffering and death, lab animals and pet animals alike whom exhibit fear and anxiety equally, and their inability to communicate these feelings via human spoken language such as English or Korean is no justification to exploit them, that is, to exploit their lack of communication. After all, we do not exploit the deaf or handicapped for their lack of communication. What would it take for the human species to accept and acknowledge that animals object to suffering and death? Perhaps if a pig voiced their opinion over an ice tea at the pool the humans would listen.

NDSU and Sanford Health‘s trauma training program is one of only two in North America that still use live pigs according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The group is putting up billboards saying it needs to stop. The group says the training involves cutting into live, sedated pigs and practicing emergency medical procedures. ~ Valley News Live

Just because the class is lawfully conducted and adheres to all of the requirements of the American College of Surgeons, does not make it justifiable or defensible. If the faculty and members of the College would not submit their own pets to such training research, then the “lawful requirements” are clearly subjective and discriminatory; not objective and impartial. Consciously the students may learn first responder skills but subconsciously they also learn speciesism – the assignment of different values, rights, or special consideration to individuals solely on the basis of their species membership; an ideology akin to racism and sexism.

The law may exclude pigs from the rights dogs and cats enjoy in this country, but the categorization of animals as companions and as practice subjects (e.g. dog pet, pig dissect) is a prejudiced view based subjectively on one’s culture and carnism – the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals, or in this case, to dissect certain animals.

The hypocrisy of the defendants and the discrimination exhibited towards our non-human animal cousins by NDSU and Sanford Health in the name of education is worthy of a billboard sized accusation, especially because widespread availability and adoption of more effective and ethical alternatives exist such as Simulab’s Trauma Man. The animals and citizens of North Dakota deserve better.