'Bodies' exhibit is unethical

By Dianne Rider

When I drove into Seattle, one of the billboards made me throw up a little, in the back of my throat. Maybe you've seen it? It's the one for Bodies, the Exhibition and it flaunts having "real human bodies." (See story, photos in the Dec. 27 issue.)

Now, I didn't almost throw up for the typical reasons because I have been working with cadavers in my anatomy lab for an entire semester. They don't bother me one bit. Our cadavers are treated with respect and dignity and they consented to be there. All of which are concepts that are very foreign to the cadavers in Bodies.

The human remains used in Bodies, according to their official Website, are unclaimed Chinese citizens. To use unclaimed bodies in such a manner is unethical and a violation of personal autonomy and human dignity.

The human remains in this exhibition were plastinated, which is a method of indefinite preservation. Being preserved indefinitely in a concept that opposes many spiritual beliefs and cultural traditions. Due to the unclaimed status of these bodies, it would be unethical to assume that they would want to undergo the process of plastination. Such an assumption would be a violation of their personal autonomy. If no funerary wishes were left, then it would be more logical to dispose of their remains according to local custom.

Also, if the bodies used in this exhibition were unclaimed, it seems unlikely that before they died they gave their informed consent. In most cases where unclaimed bodies are used, informed consent is not required. However, in most cases where unclaimed bodies are used, the bodies are not used to make a profit, their likeness is not reproduce for public viewing, they are not preserved indefinitely, and you can't buy t-shirts with their pictures on it.

The intent of this exhibition is not to train the future healthcare workers of the world or to refresh the skills of current healthcare workers such as surgeons. This exhibition, like any other traveling exhibition, exists to make a profit. Only they are profiting by using human remains. These were not some recovered treasure from a sunken ship, they were walking, talking people and they deserve respect, even if they are dead.

Due to the sensational dissections, gift shop, public viewing, and indefinite preservation special care should be taken to ensure that all bodies used in any such exhibition gave their informed consent to be there. To disregard this important factor would be to ignore the actual slippery slope that occurs when personal autonomy is overlooked. We all can remember the corpse-selling scandal at UCLA, the medical trials preformed during the Holocaust, or the cremation scandal in Georgia where the bodies were not cremated but left to rot and the ashes of concrete, dust, and pebbles were given to the families; the slippery slope is alive and well. If these people did not give their informed consent, they shouldn't be there.

According to Section 788 Article 11.1 of the San Francisco Police Code, human remains are prohibited from being displayed without appropriate written authorization from the deceased or the deceased's next of kin. This legislation was passed in response to public discomfort at the lack of consent papers for the human remains in Bodies, and in effect banned the exhibition from the city.

Who do these people think they are, that they can assume the consent of these cadavers, plastinate their remains and drag them around the world? Nobody has the right to do that. This exhibition is a disgrace to humanity.

Dianne Rider an undergraduate student at Washington State University and wrote this piece from a paper she wrote for her biomedical ethics class. She can be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com.