Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Complaint filed over cadaver show
Post Intelligencer: "The operators of a Capitol Hill museum that offers UFO exhibits, Bigfoot displays and ghost tours have filed a federal complaint against an Atlanta-based company that has opened an exhibit in downtown Seattle displaying 21 human cadavers and some 250 body parts."
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10 comments:
Interesting article. It seems like a slightly valid argument if the bodies weren't consenting, but it seems like that claim may have been taken out of context. Surely such a strongly established company wouldn't take the capitol risk of using stolen bodies for a very successful show such as this.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the book “Stiff” by Mary Roach, and I think opinions will change about this exhibit. Many feel it is an honor to donate their body to science. Researchers are very picky about who they take, my uncle was rejected due to his small stature. With the other exhibits like this around the nation, some are US citizens that have donated their body. It is a gift, but it is a very conscious decision. I cannot deny that medical teams in the US practice on unclaimed bodies, but to be put on display in another country is disrespectful.
I can respect the argument that the bodies should be taken down because their was no prior consent to display; however, the file claimed is not accusing that. Their is a difference between paying to see body parts and paying to own body parts. I'm sure another act or combination of acts exist that could be filed to protest the display more effectively.
On a different note it is an interesting way for artists and medical students to colaborate.
-Serrano
This is a very interesting article, and I can see why the exhibit is a bit controversial. I'd have to say that the only problem with the exhibit in my mind is the fact that the cadavers are unclaimed and from the Chinese government. I don't think I'd want by body cut up and displayed like that. Donating organs is one thing, but being preserved and displayed just because no one was there to claim your body is completely different. How many of you want to put a "display" sticker on your driver's license?
-Aaron Siebert
While i think this exhibit is extremely fascinating and a great education tool, I do think it's a bit odd that the cadaver's are unconsenting participants. It seems like a strange case of 'finder's keepers', and while the legality of using the bodies may not technically be in breach, the humanitarian and moral aspects certainly are. However, I also think it's a bit rich that the people criticizing the exhibit seem to be more or less parading themselves around as benefactors/spokemen for these unknown cadavers, claiming to criticize on behalf of the bodies and their families. Yet these same people seem to be doing very little to actually identify who these cadavers are, and how they can help their families. And instead are more concerned with shutting down the exhibit when a better fix would be to find a solution that would allow or force the exhibit to find project material from a different, more acceptable source, for as Joe pointed out, it doesnt look these exhibits will be going away anytime soon.
-Samantha Englender
The problem with the argument here is that there is no proof that the bodies were non-consenting. The New York Times did a series of articles a couple of months ago about this situation and about the way that it is done, and about the consent controversy. I think that people are plasing their morals on others, and that is unfair. In America, we don't plasticize our dead, but many people donate their bodies to science and allow med school students to disect them. But the issue is very difficult, because there is a controversy about the consent of the bodies. As of recently, the process of plastinization is highly overseen and they must provide proof of consent for all bodies. The claim is that the previous bodies all had consent or were unclaimed bodies and often prisoners.
Along with humans, they do this process to animals, as well.
I'll be honest, though, I just don't really want to see it. I'm not going to stop others from doing it.
And also - why do we feel it is okay to rod the graves of the pharoahs and put them on display?! Hypocracy abounds.
I don't think the individuals who are on display have much to say in the matter. I can understand if their families were the ones putting up the fight; but another company? Sounds like their just upset that they didn't think of it first. If someone were to come up and claim the body, then they would have every right to be upset. But I don't know that the company would deny them the right to take the body off of display. Where else would these bodies be? Laying in the dirt somewhere? Still in a box? Does it matter? The people aren't alive and they surely couldn't care. I guess maybe it's just me; I don't really give what happens to this body when I die. Throw it wherever you like. I won't be here anymore.
I was looking at some of the pictures of the exhibit and if I didn’t know these where real bodies I would of probably thought they were artificial.
Yes, its an interesting concept to use real bodies to show people how things work, but why do you have to do it that way, I bet it cost more money to make the real bodies presentable then to just make some fake ones.
I would like to know what the reasoning behind using the real bodies.
I honestly don't see the problem here. I understand that the people whose bodies are on display did not consent, but it's not as if someone went out into a graveyard and dug them up to put them on display. They are a loan from a medical school who has every right to them since the bodies were not claimed. Also, the fact that they are on display for educational purposes makes it even less of a problem. It's not as if they are on display in someone's home for their own personal and twisted enjoyment. The people protesting should really get over it.
-Natasha Alejandro
I want to know who told the people that were taking the unclaimed bodies that it was ok? There is the other exhibit like this that is touring mostly North America and all of the bodies involved in that exhibit have been donated, like its been said. I don't have a problem with another exhibit like that, but I do think that it is not ok to take unclaimed bodies to do it. And I understand that sometimes its a culture thing that its great to have your body on display for generations to come and that its sort of like being frozen, only you don't wake up again, so its not actually like that, but this isn't the case as these chinese people didn't know that they were going to be a part of an freak museum exhibit after they died. And there is a difference too between medical students practicing on cadavers and the bodies being skinned, posed and plasticised and then put on display.
- Jen Owen
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