Pigs: Ok For Porkchops And Bacon, But Not For Saving Lives?

A group called Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has launched some billboards in Fargo calling out North Dakota State University for using live pigs as practice subjects in trauma life support training classes.

According to this WDAY report, the group has sent a letter to NDSU President Dean Bresciani demanding that the university stop the practice.

But NDSU says the use of the live pigs “falls well within all federal guidelines,” and students involved in the program are defending their use as well.

“It’s a common sense way to do science,” said Christian Roise, a NDSU student, told WDAY.

“It’s functioning already, so you know how it’s going to affect each one of those systems,” she added.

“Their lives are meaning a lot more in some ways than if they were to just be butchered and sold as meat,” another student, Kara Smith, said.

That all makes perfect sense to me. I’m hardly an expert on the subject matter, but if the students and teachers and administrators in charge at the program at NDSU say that live pigs are what works I’m willing to take their word for it.

Especially when we’re just, you know, talking about pigs. The animals we make bacon and pork chops out of.

I have a hard time getting worked up at the idea of pig deaths when a) those deaths are hardly wanton given that they’re helping train people to save human lives and b) we generally don’t have a problem killing pigs to make delicious food.