Controversial Bodies: Thoughts on the Public Display of Plastinated Corpses

Afterword: Plastination’s Share of Mind

124 Afterword Plastination’s Share of Mind neil a. ward, MFA, and john d. lantos, MD It would be unjust to the breadth of the positions and insights of our multidisciplinary contributors to close this book with an attempt to synthesize or summarize the observations presented. These twelve essays suggest that the issues raised by the plastination of bodies reach more deeply into the center of human concerns than one might at first expect. They also implicitly address a question that often arises in discussions of plastination: “Who cares?” Why, from among the many issues that claim the attention of the discipline of bioethics, should we concern ourselves with plastination? Does the plastination of bodies, as an issue bidding for a thinking human’s share of mind, really bid quite at the level of such matters as stem cell policy, organ donation protocols, prenatal gender selection , prioritization of access to medical care, euthanasia, or—that hoary old grandma of the culture wars—abortion? The list of bioethical issues that demonstrably affect the lives, quality of lives, and decision environments of millions could certainly grow. Indeed, it might be tempting to place the issues addressed in this book among the items of least concern. There is something decidedly low-brow about plastination. The odor of the carnival adheres to it. But that very observation invites a further reflection. One thing that sets the plastinated bodies exhibits apart from other bioethics controversies is their popularity and notoriety. Not many manifestations of bioethics issues draw crowds in Las Vegas. That, in itself, might count as a point against serious attention to the Afterword 125 plastination phenomenon. But another feature also sets the plastinated bodies controversy apart. For such a popular phenomenon, it is also surprisingly nuanced. Indeed, other bioethics issues are “popular.” Stem cells, abortion, and euthanasia, for example, are often in the headlines and are discussed on prime-time television. But those issues have a different sort of popularity. Discussions of those issues evoke strong views among laymen. The passions that surround the abortion debate, for example, have determined, to a large extent, the composition of the U.S. Congress and federal judiciary, to say nothing of state jurisdictions . Abortion as an issue, not necessarily as a procedure, is quite popular. But it is not nuanced. There is little more to be said, little that creative thought can add, to the crystallized positions held with more or less passion throughout our political and, indeed, ethical consensus. In contrast, public and scholarly engagement with the issues raised by plastinated bodies remains vivid and fluid. The plastination of bodies has seized the popular attention not because it is cuttingedge science, nor because philosophers and theologians respond to it, but because the work itself is mentally engaging, technically impressive , ethically problematic, educationally presumptuous, and commercially successful. The issues raised by plastination open a window onto the larger set of issues surrounding any alteration, display, or trade in body parts. These issues grip and engage a share of the popular mind. Views and values surrounding this late intrusion into our attention have imposed themselves at a point of fine balance. When we contemplate this controversy, we do not easily sink to an ossified formulation but continue to turn the matter over, attend to the perspectives of others, and ponder and work to unravel the actual stakes within contexts that have a certain refreshing unfamiliarity—as the essays in this volume, we think, demonstrate. The notion of “popularity” itself tends to bring the plastination of bodies and their exhibition into a certain disrepute. Some scholars may raise their noses and question whether a book like this one 126 neil a. ward and john d. lantos merely gives legitimacy to a matter that belongs in the popular gutter . Let us acknowledge this common academic prejudice—and set it aside. The Body Worlds exhibits invite the layman to study, not just anatomy, but the bioethics universe and his or her place in it. Such popularizations raise questions and offer opportunities to democratize debates that are too often held in the rarefied air of academic seminar rooms or in the esoteric prose of scholarly journals. Such venues do not do justice to the task. As medical technology and medical policy impose themselves increasingly within the fabric of our lives, everybody needs to obtain a certain literacy in the philosophic issues surrounding these phenomena. The public display of plastinated...