This is interesting...

School Autopsy Tours Canceled

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081208/METRO/812080342/1409/METRO

Kinda wish this sort of thing was offered when I was in school. Shame it had to be cancelled.

As a parent...*click*...As a parent...*click*...As a parent...*click*...

If that were MY child...*click*...If that were MY child...*click*...If that were MY child...*click*...

Seacreature Wrote:
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> As a parent...*click*...As a parent...*click*...As
> a parent...*click*...
>
> If that were MY child...*click*...If that were MY
> child...*click*...If that were MY
> child...*click*...

I'm still laughing over this comment!

There were only 2 comments (?)

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Well, I can't speak, "as a parent", or "from a parent's perspective", but I do have some common decency and an opinion on this, but it's mixed. I think that including the observation of an actual autopsy as a part of college prep biology courses for high school seniors is an excellent and great educational idea. HOWEVER, I do not think that ANY body should be autopsied in front of an "audience" who don't have legal or medical cause to be present, UNLESS the body has been willed/donated to science or the next of kin has signed a release. I am less concerned with the alleged "post traumatic stress disorder" that these teens might get from witnessing it and more concerned with the rights and dignity of the dead "patient" and their families.

I absolutely would NOT want any students (or other unauthorized person or group) watching anyone do an autopsy on MY family members, ESPECIALLY if they knew me/us and I would be even MORE opposed to it if their death was an accident, murder, or suicide, as it would have been so sudden and tragic. These kyds are'nt bound by any legal or ethical standards to treat what and who they see in a professional manner and what is to stop them from spreading intimate info about the deceased student all over town? No family should have to suffer something like that. Until now, I had NO IDEA that the city or county could just let anyone off the street in to see an autopsy and quite frankly, I think it's an appalling practice.

Either the body is donated or willed, release signed, or NO ONE sees the naked dead body and it's handling except the medical examiner and the undertaker and perhaps their assistants. That's my vote on the matter anyway, as a non parent.

Oops, I was not referring to either of the two comments posted at the website. (This article was picked up by my local paper too, where I read it this morning, and it got me thinking.)

I had assumed that Seacreature was referring to the stampede of hostile parents who started the email/letter-writing campaign so that kids from this particular school didn't view post mortems anymore, and that every parent's letter to the superintendent looked like a cookie-cutter version of, "As a parent," I am outraged and incensed over blah-blah-blah, how dare you yada-yada-yada, I'll have your job, you no-good such and so. Since I can completely see this happening in pretty much any public school district, and I find such herd mentality pathetically humorous, that's what I was laughing about.

As Kim mentions, it is tragic that family members knew that classmates attended the girl's autopsy without parental consent, and I am in no way making fun of this girl's death or the pain that her death has caused her friends and family.

Sorry for the confusion.

Oh yes, I agree about their oh so typical herd mentality and their "as a parent" bullshit. What pissed me off is that their "as a parent" comments only reffered to the sufferring it might cause THEIR live and breathing chyld and don't seem to give a shit that there is a dead peer of their kyds' laying there cut open in front of everybody. They sure didn't seem to care either how the dead girls' parents felt. They ONLY seem to understand this "as a parent" when it suits them. I wish a parent of the deceased girl would write in and say, "As a parent of the child who comitted suicide, I am APPALLED that YOU allowed YOUR child to observe an autopsy where MY CHILD was being dissected like it was a class picnic or something. Haven't we already suffered enough? May all of you heartless bastards and your selfish brood burn in hell."

Silly, that's because only THEIR kid matters, don't 'cha know?

To hell with everybody else's.



married with rabbits Wrote:
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> ................ They only seem to care about kids or
> how parents feel 'when its their own.'

I would love to meet the person(s) who had my mother's body as their cadaver (we donated it to medical school). It's probably too late for that now.