Thank you.

Guess I was thrown off by the references to the “basically dumped” Chinese dissidents that hadn’t granted consent.
Apologies.

Consent is KEY, NUMBER ONE CONSIDERATION HERE! Was this how they wanted their bodies used? Not the personal quease tolerance of the individual!!!Not if it is “educational”! If you have any regard for humans, how can you not question where and how these bodies came to be displayed in this exhibit. And if you have any doubt, how can you support this exhibit? And how can you not have doubt when some of the plastinates are fetuses? Humans as marketable product is a slippery slope, and I am afraid we are not questioning enough the price of this ignorance.

I don’t think she was commenting at all on the peoples’ origin nor their consent - just the concept of the project in general.

I didn’t see it because it’s a little too much detail for me, not because I had an objection to the concept.

This discussion reminds me a great deal of the primary source material I read discussing the use of cadavers in medical schools about 150 years ago. It was frowned upon by the general public for very similar reasons, and as I recall several religious leaders came out against it.

I realize that this is a different conversation as you can’t compare medical study with a public museum, but we are NOT talking about having these bodies displayed like plaster cows on the Chicago streets!

What upsets me is corporations profiting from the use of prisoners. Then again I’m much more enfuriated by corporations profiting from the abuse of living beings.

Body Worlds didn’t upset me or nauseate me because I can differentiate between scientific curiosity and my early “that’s ooky” training courtesy of my mother. My husband calls it “going clinical” and sometimes you just have to do pretty nauseating stuff in life, like changing an explosive diaper or placing a tourniquet to stop a spurting artery.

Child abuse and people dying in droves of preventable diseases…now THAT nauseates me! How those things don’t upset people is beyond me.

Logtar, fwiw, I agree that the sponsors of these exhibits need to be forthcoming in how they procure the bodies. Body Worlds DOES this. I have no experience with the other organization whatsoever.

Here’s another twist. What if all the cadavers were children? Would you still be as interested?

I can’t stomach this idea. It’s making me nauseous just to think about it, and how it can’t upset anyone else is beyond me.

You are right, I can tell people not to do something and it would not mean a thing if they have their mind made up. However, what I am trying to do is to make sure people are completely informed before they line the pockets of people that have used the bodies of prisoners unwilling to participate on the spectacle, even if it was not any of he bodies used in this exhibit. I cannot trust that they are sincere.

I love anatomy, I watch the discovery channel and TLC, I have actually been in a educational setting with cadavers and I did not learn anymore than when I was looking at models. JoCo just created a state of the art nurse teaching facility that mirrors an ER and they do not have any plasticized bodies…

You mention dignity. I don’t see what could be a higher, more noble calling for our mortal shell than education and science. Who knows what kind of inspiration school children might draw from seeing an exhibit like this?

I guess I just don’t see why we should assume that this is undignified — especially before seeing it for ourselves.

Throughout the exhibit, at least the day I was there, there was a strong sense of peace and dignity; even the kids there doing work with their class were more well-behaved and respectful than most I’ve seen at museums.

The exhibit did not bother me in the least. It was absolutely fascinating to see the intricacy of our bodies and how all the tiniest parts work together for the good of the whole. I was the kid in biology who LOVED dissecting cats and so forth, and who really enjoys reading about what happens, physiologically, to our bodies as they stop working optimally. So, yeah, I’m weird.

The only part I did NOT like (and which was curtained off in its own secure area inaccessible to children) were the miscarried fetuses. That was beyond depressing, even for my medical-field relatives.

Which leads me to say this: If someone knew going in to an exhibit like this was the sort of thing that would bother them, that person should absolutely NOT go! And, like you, I cannot easily sanction the use of people who did NOT donate their bodies for a use such as this. There is a dignity in death that needs to be respected. And I think Body Works achieved that, at least the day I was there.

And now I’ll go be quiet.

Knowing that at one time, in the past, each and every one of those bodies walked, talked, had dreams, slept, sang, ran, played, argued, had sex, wondered, worked, sneezed, hugged, kissed, wrote, ate and came down with a cold gives me the evil chills.

To simply prop them up for view in the name of science, when, as you say, synthetic substitutes are easily create-able is the height of arrogance. Displaying the dead is an affront to their lives, no matter who they were or the health decisions they made in their past.