Cadaver Exhibit: Who Said OK?

The Los Angeles Times ^ | January 25, 2008 | By Marc Lifsher

[JACKRUSSELL]

(SACRAMENTO) -- Cars packed the parking lot of a shuttered CompUSA store one recent weekday afternoon as schoolchildren, health professionals and the just plain curious paid $24 apiece to stare at a score of plasticized, dissected human cadavers and roomfuls of preserved body parts.

The cadavers are displayed dramatically, with layers of skin and muscle peeled back to reveal internal organs, bones, blood vessels and nerves. The exhibition, with bodies posed as if playing a violin, swinging a golf club or performing other tasks, provoked plenty of hushed comments.   "Where do they come from?" a young woman asked a guide dressed in a white lab coat.

"They're elderly Chinese men who donated their bodies," the docent said.

Now, California lawmakers are asking similar questions about the traveling exhibits of so-called plastinated bodies. On Thursday the state Assembly voted 50 to 4 to approve legislation to ensure that the people whose remains are on display consented to be gawked at by the public. The bill next goes to the Senate.

"Although plastination was intended to advance medicine and science, many entrepreneurs are using plastination to make outrageous profits by dissecting, mutilating and parading unwilled bodies around the world and in our state," the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), said during Assembly debate. "Asking for consent and verification is not too much to ask."

The two major anatomy exhibitors are divided on the legislation. Industry pioneer Body Worlds said it has no problem providing donor documentation. The other exhibitor, Premier Exhibitions Inc., which operates the Sacramento show, said it obtained all the remains legally from Chinese medical and scientific organizations but does not know the identities of the donors.

Ma, a Chinese American, said she became concerned about the use of Chinese remains after viewing a 2005 anatomy exhibition......

[stentorian conservative]

Ah—so this is what levity feels like. Thanks for the chuckle.

[durasell]

the wheelchairs are slow — but they don’t have two guys guiding it.

I’m not an engineer. I just like mulling possible inventions.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

There is a German documentary, called “The Way to Eden” (Der Web nach Eden)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0114904/

“People die, every day, every minute, every second. People also die in movies, sometimes the body-count is one of the greatest assets of a movie. But what happens after we die? Here movies usually turn to the living.

They mourn, they are shocked, they live on. This documentary is about the dead and about what happens to them after they die. Not in a metaphysical sense. No, it follows those, who handle the corpses, those, who ‘post-process’ them.

Here, the topic of modern medicine enters the stage. Autopsy may not be the standard procedure, but it is a common phenomenon not only in the case of ‘suspicious’ deaths - as most movies want make us believe. There is another motive for autopsy: Order, science, and - in the case of the expert introduced in this documentary: mere craftsmanship.

And here, besides the strong pictures of routines which are about taking apart corpses - the extraordinary quality of this movie lies: Respect for the death, respect for humanity can also express itself through bureaucratic regulations, which involve systematic mangling of bodies with knifes and scalpels. There is no black-and-white dualism between following of technical rules and the mystery of death. The truth is somewhere in-between or beyond.”

[wintertime]

schoolchildren,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

School children? Parents consented to this?

[stentorian conservative]

How many millions of dead children do you think it took to change that one mind?

I must say, respectfully, that your question makes little sense to me.

However, I will say that the answer is one. One Child--murdered and ripped from his unwilling mother's womb to change God knows how many minds about the true beginning of LIFE.

[thirst4truth]

I have seen it and took my kids. It was really amazing. Definitely helps to understand how the body works. I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it. At first it might be a little uncomfortable, but once you get used to it, it is an awesome display of how detailed and incredible the human body is.

I went to it in DC with some friends and an 18 year old thinking about going into medicine. It was uncomfortable at first, the 18 year old's encouragement to go turned out to be well worth it. It was humbling and educational and spiritual. I talked about God and his wonderful creation the whole way through. You look at all the intricacies of the human body, how the whole body works together, you see displays of the pancreas, the apendix, smokers lungs, the tendens the circulatory system, the blood vessels, the heart, etc. it was absolutely fascinating.

[gusopol3]

probably only about 50, so I bow to your more extensive experience. My observations have been different from yours.

[gusopol3]

So you believe that God created this amazing, and incredible complex body for us, yet he doesn’t want us to understand how it works or what it looks like?

Now you've been on your soapbox too long. These are plasticised exhibits. The kind of understanding that you claim is attainable in this environment is extremely unlikely. As I noted earlier the entrepreneur running around with them in his appearance makes it clear, that for whatever veneer of educational value there is supposed to be, he views himself as a carnival barker with a freak show. You're entitled to your opinion, don't disparage people who disagree.

[Habibi]

This exhibit was great. We even took our 7 and 9 year old and they loved it (they’ve been at “Death’s Door” at least a few times and aren’t at all squeamish about how the body works).

It’s a good exhibit. I don’t really get the protestation. It seems there’s a lot of objections that have more to do with other agendas, than about the show ...... but then we just went and enjoyed it so I guess we’re opinionated as well. ;-)

[stentorian conservative]

. . . he or she is the voiceless witness to the evil of godless atheism.

I would argue that this gives him/her a voice. With parents and grandparents like you and I, we would give them a very loud voice. He/She has more voice "on display" than in a dumpster, landfill or incinerator.

Not one life taken by force is worth the changing of a few minds.

"By force" being the operative phrase.

[WestwardHo]

If the authorities were donating my family members to these exhibits I would protest. My sons are more than skeletons, muscles, blood vessels. They are fathers, brothers,sons, love, laughter, bundles of memories, my earthly treasures.
A short list of artists, athletes, craftsmen, authors, dancers, etc., demonstrates we are wonderfully made. I sometimes wonder what a person would be if they had all the best of human abilities...runner, weight-lifter, smart,etc.,etc. I guess they’ve already done that on TV. I don’t need to see their innards to figure out their pretty amazing. I have cut up a few chickens.....I digress.
From my nursing days, caring for the dying, and then sometimes being the last to bathe and wrap them for the morgue, the last person to do them some simple human kindness, I know there is something mysterious about that body. It’s sobering even to try to write out my memories, to say I could no more mistreat the body than the living person.
I believe that God’s salvation for sinful man is complete in Jesus Christ. That salvation is so complete that in the end, God will not even leave our bodies in the ground. He will resurrect those who put their trust in Him, and those who choose their own way. That’s how important our bodies are to God.
1. They are Chinese. We minimize their deaths. We don’t want to think that they belonged to mothers and fathers, etc.
2. It’s been in the news that Chinese executions are carried out in stadiums with medical teams on hand to harvest body organs.
3. The funeral traditions in this country demonstrate the mystery of death and how people try to deal with it. We treat our dead with respect and cling to every hope that they are somehow still with us. How we treat our dead gives the lie to our cavalier attitude towards the dead of the irrelevant others.
4. Jesus was buried with over a hundred pounds of burial spices. They were costly and they did not keep Him in the grave.

[bannie]

Cremation is my friend.

[bannie]

I used to imagine that, when you donated body parts, they were used as transplants.

I wonder if others think this and are not aware that their whole bodies might be used some other way.

?

[Nuc1]

Are they upset with “The Teacher” one because it only has half of a brain?

Musta been a female teacher. I know I know just kidding ladies! :D)

[nutmeg]

Thanks for the ping. The exhibit is currently in the Tampa Bay area. My hairdresser said she thought about me when she heard about the exhibit. LOL.

LOL... I would hope the reason she thought about you is because you're a nurse! ;-)

There seem to be versions of "Body Worlds" all over the place... there's a small version of BW in Hartford, CT and another version of it in NYC at South Street Seaport. I'm not really sure if it's the same guy behind all of these exhibits...

[Lijahsbubbe]

Bump