Controversial Bodies: Thoughts on the Public Display of Plastinated Corpses

9. Normative Objections to Posing Plastinated Bodies: An Ethics of Bodily Repose

90 chapter nine Normative Objections to Posing Plastinated Bodies An Ethics of Bodily Repose tarris rosell, dmin, phd Upon learning that the Bodies Revealed exhibit is coming to town, colleagues gather around a conference table at the Center for Practical Bioethics and a spirited dialogue erupts. One of our staff members has been recruited to serve on an ethics advisory group for the science museum sponsor. We discuss the various ethical controversies that surround this exhibit. Our moral hackles are raised by allegations of ethical impropriety in the procurement of bodies. Some of us are put off by the sensationalist billboard photos of plastinated corpses in athletic poses. A few are bothered by the utilization of an Asian ethnic minority group for the educational or entertainment needs of Westerners. Several around the conference table say that they will not visit the exhibit and do not think the ethics center should be involved with it in any way. Others think that we should organize educational activities to discuss the moral controversies. During exhibition months, I present Bodies Revealed as a case study for classes of seminarians studying Christian ethics and medical students studying bioethics. The latter are young adults primarily from Christian faith communities. All of the theological students are Christian and most tend toward middle age, with equal numbers of women and men. Some are liberal and others are conservative on Normative Objections to Posing Plastinated Bodies 91 matters of morals. In both classes, discussion is lively regarding the morality or immorality of exhibits of plastinated bodies. Only a few persons in either class have visited this exhibit or intend to do so. One medical student who had trained and volunteered as a docent expresses distress at what she experienced during approximately forty hours on site. She has a hard time articulating what exactly seemed “unethical” about Bodies Revealed but recalls an incident when an adolescent boy was caught taking cell phone photos of a female cadaver’s genitalia.The student docent had sensed what she terms a patent disrespect for the dead by some, not all, visitors. Initially, other students are unable to specify further what seems morally objectionable, yet something about this exhibit just doesn’t feel right to most of these very bright scholars. Is it merely what someone describes as the “ick factor”? Class discussions produce a minority opinion that is voiced in support of Bodies Revealed on grounds of educational value, freedom of expression, and marketplace principles. Anyway, who is harmed? The dead themselves? Postmortem rights or harms seem unlikely to this group. Even the dissenting majority can think of potential alterations to the current exhibition that might make it “okay,” or seem less wrong, anyway. They suggest the involvement of nonprofit entities only, fully documented and informed consent by the donors of the bodies, diversity of ethnicity in consented corpses, clearly educational intent and not that of entertainment, avoidance of sensationalism in advertising, and federal regulation of international trafficking of bodies or body parts for display or sale. A Christian clergy colleague, my former student, also engages me in conversation about Bodies Revealed. Jack has seen the advertisements but doesn’t plan to go visit.1 He is a particularly thoughtful young man, one with a congenitally gentle and calm demeanor. I have never before heard Jack raise his voice or seen him get visibly angry. But when I ask him what he thinks about this interesting exhibit and ethical controversy down at the Science Museum in Union Station, my friend responds immediately and irately, emoting more 92 tarris rosell than thinking. Jack’s voice shakes a bit as he states rather loudly, “Let me tell you this much: If it was my wife’s body on display down there, I’d burn the place down!” After weeks of moral waffling and collegial dialogue, I decided to go see the exhibit. I had hesitated to go mostly out of respect for the dead. In the end, I went out of respect for the dying. My eighty-oneyear -old mother had just been diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer with metastases to the liver, lungs, ovaries, and peritoneum. After receiving this sobering news in a phone call from home, I felt a need to see those body parts in context, not only in photographs online, but in a human body if possible. The exhibit of plastinated bodies made this possible. I bought one...