army

Is it justified to intentionally injure animals if it will possibly save human lives in the future? The army obviously believes so.

The plan is for soldiers to shoot live pigs and then practice treating their wounds as part of a medical exercise. Apparently, this will enable troops to treat wounded soldiers when there is not a doctor or other medical professional nearby.

Though I can understand the merits of the learning first-hand how to dress a wound, I really don't believe that it is necessary to torture innocent animals to do so.

PETA suggests other methods, such as high-tech human simulators. Besides this alternative, I think it would be advantageous to have people in the military learn from following emergency ambulance squads or shadowing an emergency room technician. Maybe they could be given basic medical skills during their training in the army.

However, the army representative (Major Derrick Cheng) says, I quote, "Those alternative methods just can’t replicate what the troops are going to face when we use live-tissue training.” Um...that is repulsive. Live-tissue training?

And somehow they think it is better because they anesthetize the animals. Yeah, it's okay to be carving holes with bullets into these pigs because they are numb to the pain right? And we'll fix them right up, okay?

This is an outrageous act of animal abuse. Sadly, it probably cannot even compare to the violence seen by troops in real life.

This image is from www.ecosherpa.com