Erase doubt about ‘Bodies’

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

The human anatomy is displayed in all of its wondrous intricacy — or gross indignity, depending on one’s point of view — at a growing number of for-profit exhibitions of dead people.

Promoted as unique educational opportunities, the exhibits showcase whole cadavers, partial cadavers and stand-alone body parts using a technology developed in the late 1970s.

This technology brings blood vessels, bones, ribs, muscles and every other part of the body into full view.

Since the first “Bodies” exhibit in the mid-1990s, several more have been developed by a number of companies that have set them up in cities all over the world.

In Las Vegas, visitors can walk through “Bodies ... The Exhibition” at the Tropicana

Reactions have ranged from exhilaration to horror. Many people who rave about what they saw first mention the display of lungs, which shows healthy ones next to those of a smoker. The contrast is, indeed, highly educational.

But since the exhibits began, many other people have said they are morbid. “By treating our bodies as mere objects, we cheapen the value of life,” one critic wrote on a Web site set up to protest the exhibits.

Our view is that such contrasting opinions are perhaps another value of the exhibits — they get people talking not only about the biology of life, but also about the meaning of life.

Another view being heard lately is more troubling. This view centers on the origin of the bodies. What were the circumstances of their deaths? As most come from China, a country known for its human rights abuses, the question is valid and has made its way to Congress.

Rep, Todd Akin, R-Mo., has introduced a bill to prohibit the importation of bodies for such exhibits, reasoning that here in the United States certification can be required to ensure the bodies were voluntarily donated and legally obtained.

An outright ban on importation is extreme. But we do believe, given the widespread interest in such exhibits, that an international, certifiable standard should be developed for using bodies in this way.

No one should ever have to wonder if the body he is viewing once belonged to a victim of human rights abuse, or to a person whose permission for display was never granted.