Frist: Life Saver, Cat Killer Or both of the above?

American Enterprise Magazine Online ^ | January 10, 2003 | Marni Soupcoff

[Apolitical]

Bill Frist was in the news a lot in the days after Christmas. Half the articles out there praised the man as a glorious hero who stopped at an accident scene and saved lives without asking for any credit. The other half of the articles painted Frist as an unfeeling freak who, as an eager medical student, stopped by humane societies and lied to get his hands on homeless cats so that he could dissect them............

[Apolitical]

Interesting perspective on Bill Frisk.

[boomop1]

Yawn

[friendly]

Bill Frist is a bone fide Super Hero. He will be a surprise republican candidate for President In 6 years, mark my words, running on a platform including greatly expanded health insurance availability and tort reform.

[ChemistCat]

If the Republican* was so simple we could understand it, we couldn't.



*originally, "human brain"

[JennysCool]

Frisk? As in Friskies?

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[davisfh]

Little foxes nipping at his heels.

[LouD]

Now, remember the cats. Frist adopted them under false pretences as a medical student because the labs had run out of animals for him to dissect for his clinical research. He even kept them as pets for a few days before actually dissecting them. In his mind, it was a necessary evil to save the live of humans. In my mind it was a cold and heartless deed that shows a startling void right where you’d expect to find human kindness and concern...

I could never do what Bill Frist did to the stray cats he “adopted,” then slaughtered in the name of medical science. I’m so attached to my own pet rabbits that I’ve been carting them around the continent with me for the past six years, spending money I couldn’t afford on pet-friendly apartments and in-cabin plane “tickets” for them so they wouldn’t have to suffer the dangers and discomfort of the cargo hold. I’m a softie who doesn’t like to see any furry thing suffer.

What an imbecile. He was a med student, who dissected cats so he could be a better doctor. She equates the value of a cat with the value of a human life.

[MonroeDNA]

Ankle biters, mostly Buchaninites. Also known as, "Patsies."

[VOA]

He was a med student, who dissected cats so he could be a better doctor.
She equates the value of a cat with the value of a human life.

The students who took the Human Anatomy and Physiology class at Oklahoma
Christian College (a school aligned with, but NOT run by, the mainstream
Churches of Christ) learned their "dissection technique" in their Anatomy and
Physiology class by cutting on CATS.

(the felines were already dead, purchased from a medical supply company...and
didn't smell good toward the end of the lab class...)

Frist may have offended WORLDLY "moral" people with his stunt to give him
extra practice with a dissection blade...
but I suspect that Frist can produce a small battalion of people (many from the Third World)
who would express their approval that Frist became a better surgeon/transplantion
specialist by practicing on...
NON-HUMANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HetLoo]

I could never do what Bill Frist did to the stray cats he “adopted,” then slaughtered in the name of medical science.

okay, and that's worse than shooting dogs during traffic stops How?

[Young Rhino]

1. Frist saves lives. How about a "Frist Saves" bumper sticker?

2. Frist killed cats to gain expertise in accomplishing #1.

3. Give Frist a medal.

4. Give the whiners replacement tinfoil hats.

[medic]

Heck, I'm with Sen. Frist. What do you think I dissect in class? If I was really lucky, our class would have a human cadaver lab. Sorry, it takes dissection to learn anatomy.

[Mfkmmof4]

Oh sure but then some groups believe it is okay to kill a baby after delivery and being born alive. Which is worse?

[Sungirl]

What he did to those poor cats was horrible. He said so himself. After thinking about this awhile, I feel that he should be commended for publicly acknowledging that what he did was 'henious'.

[Question_Assumptions]

Expecting humane treatment of animals does not meant that one is putting them above humans. That's an excluded middle argument that just won't fly. Having adopted cats as pets from a shelter, I know they probably would have been put to sleep if I hadn't adopted them. The workers begged us to take one of the cats because she was older and unlikely to be adopted.

That said, my ultimate opinion of Frist's actions would be based, on information I don't have -- on the cats he selected (Did he pick kittens or older cats who were unlikely to be adopted?) and how humanely he treated them before and when they died. This wasn't a case of a cat's life being traded for a human life and plenty of medical students seem to get by without doing this. There isn't any excuse for cruelty. I'm willing to give Frist the benefit of the doubt. But I have to say that I'm both sympathetic and disturbed, at the same time, by what he did and I think this author may be on to something about why.

[patriciaruth]

If it will broaden your perspective, consider that the cats were older cats who wouldn't have been adopted and would have been "put to sleep" (asphyxiated) anyway. (How do I know they weren't "cute kittens"? Because bigger cats gave more tissue to practice on and there is no advantage to learning dissection on something as tiny as a kitten.)

Truth is, he probably could have bribed someone at the pound or even gotten them to give him the animals that were about to be "euthanized" by telling the truth to someone who sympathized with his aims. But this way, only he had the burden of the "yukky" truth.

The real creepo people are those that dump their unwanted animals on some rural road with the lie to themselves that they will take care of themselves or that some farmer will adopt them. Truth is they starve outright or die miserably. Truth is that the farmer backhoes them into the land.

There are lies and there are lies.

[patriciaruth]

plenty of medical students seem to get by without doing this.

In my training, pre-med and med, I was required to participate in the killing of several rats and a rabbit, and do dissection on a cat and cardiac catheterization on a dog. I also dissected a human cadaver with three other students.

I was not aiming to become a top notch surgeon, like Frist. I imagine that surgeons do a lot more than I did.