SAN ANTONIO – Cellphone video showing Texas high school students using cat intestines to skip rope during anatomy class has sparked a passionate debate on social media.
In the video, someone can be heard yelling “Faster!” as a male student from Winston Churchill High School jumps over the length of cat gut. “This is anatomy.. Jump roping with cat intestines,” reads one video caption, complete with two cat emojis.
“The lesson was intended to demonstrate and explore the strength of the organ,” said Aubrey Chancellor, a spokeswoman for the school district. “The teacher participated in this same lesson in her college courses at Texas A&M.”
Chancellor told KSAT that neither the school nor the students involved will face any disciplinary measures.
The video has been shared widely and has some people outraged, while others are less affected.
“This is disgusting and I would have left the class, no matter what the teacher said (if they were even in the room at this point,” wrote a woman named Caroline Gray. “I am okay with respectful dissection, but this is unacceptable.”
Another person, Jordan Escobedo, wrote, “Immature? Yes. Cruel? Nah. Animal was already dead, no reason to throw a fit.”
PETA has condemned the video, saying it is evidence that such anatomy lessons can dull a human sense of empathy for animals”
“Dissection is bad science: 98 percent of medical schools don’t require it, studies show that students are less interested in science after being forced to dissect, and it’s a super-archaic, cruel way to teach biology and anatomy,” the group said in a statement. “Churchill officials have an obligation to ensure that this never happens again—they need to end all animal dissection immediately. Allowing dissection to continue endorses callousness, disrespect, and cruelty to animals.”
