- Bodies…The Exhibition
- No More Bodies
It’s official. No more Bodies…The Exhibition in Seattle without the proper paperwork. The Seattle City Council voted unanimously today to ban the exhibit of human remains in the city without the written permission of the deceased. Dubbed the “Bodies legislation” and “the anti-body bill,” the ordinance seeks to send a message to exhibits like Bodies which rely heavily on cadavers of dubious origin from China. Human body parts, organs, fetuses, and embryos are also displayed.
Bodies organizers, Premier Exhibitions, has a disclaimer on its website that says that the exhibit “displays human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you are viewing are not those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.”
Council Member Nick Licata, who sponsored the legislation, stressed that it was not a ban but a requirement that businesses that come into Seattle obey certain rules and regulations. Violations would result in fines of up to $250 per day. “The legislation was prompted by a number of individuals who approached me and were concerned about the way” these exhibits were done, Licata said. “I looked at what other cities were doing.” Hawaii and New York have also passed similar legislation, with Hawaii banning it completely. Seattle’s legislation is based on San Francisco’s. “It’s a human rights concern—whether the next of kin were notified or not,” Licata said. “There’s also some question about the profit motive being so strong.”
Licata’s legislative aide Frank Video told The Stranger that the issue had received a lot of attention. “Comments we’re receiving sometimes touch upon the morality issue,” Video said. “But the legislation is about consent, not whether people are offended by the sight of cadavers playing badminton.”
In his newsletter “Urban Politics,” Licata questioned Premier’s claim that the exhibition provided educational value to the public. “Does the public learn more from posed plasticized cadavers than from illustrations or simulations?” he asked. “Are such cadavers without identity or are they someone’s parents and children? What some may consider a unique educational experience may be viewed by others as sensationalism at its worst, a collection of dead bodies stripped naked, carved up and placed on exhibit.”
When Bodies debuted in Seattle in 2006, the New York Times reported “a ghastly new underground mini-industry” with “little government oversight” which was providing human remains for this and similar exhibitions.
“The issue of human trafficking affects all of us,” said Council Member Tim Burgess. “While this is a small step, it’s a good step. The message is we don’t endorse any form of human trafficking in the city.”
wait, $250 a day? so they could either move to bellevue or pay the cost of like 10 visitors as a fee for doing business in seattle. i think there will be plenty more bodies in the pnw one way or another.
But what will China do with all the parents executed for complaining about their children being killed due to shoddy construction of schools in earthquake zones now?
I’m glad I saw it when I did, then, because it was fascinating and changed my life TBH.
So all you have to do to display the corpses of Falun Gong members in Seattle is obtain some obviously forged or forced “family consent”? From a country that charges the families of Falun Gong members for the cost of the bullets used to execute them? Or else pay a fine of $250 a day, which is like a parking ticket? Brilliant.
When can we expect to see Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ corpses on parade?
I have this vague remembrance of a saying “you can tell how civilized a society is by how they revere their dead” and the sentiment always seemed like bunk to me. Dead bodies are empty husks, and if we can use them to learn, then that’s awesome. It’s how we treat the bodies of the living that’s important.
yay. now i wont have to look at the huge ads of cadavers on buses evrywhere.
@4 they’re saving the GITMO corpses for Sarah Palin’s Inauguration in 2012.
Really? $250? That’s like not actually having any law at all. What a waste of time.
@5, how do you think these people got to be cadavers in the first place?
Does that mean Sylvia the Mummy, at the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, will be taken off display?!
how will this affect Mark “Mom” Finley?
That was mean.
But funny.
Apologies.
I’m sure that the city has more enforcement options than the simple fine.
A company can’t just come in and set up a (now) illegal operation and just continue paying the fine while operating. They’ll still need permits to operate which they now can’t get.
@9: Well w/ China’s population, a lot of people do die there, but I don’t discount the possibility that they were political dissidents. But having to look at repressions flayed victims just might move some people to think, and what better use for a dead body? I just lack all reverence for human husks. Living human forms, completely different story.
If only there were a similar exhibition that used 100% purpose-donated specimens, were not run by a shady Atlanta-based for-profit company, preferred to show in museums and educational institutions rather than convention halls, and actually invented the fucking concept in the first place…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Worlds
@14 I agree, and you and I are free to give permission for our bodies to be treated in any way that we like. But there’s no evidence that the people who owned those bodies felt the same way.
I agree that consent should be required for such exhibits, but Licata’s line about “illustrations or simulations” sounds as if it was lifted directly from an idiotic PETA press release. Scientists have been battling such ignorant bullshit from public officials since at least the days of Leonardo da Vinci.
@ 3 and 5: I suppose then that if you were hit by a bus tomorrow, it would be OK, without your known consent, of course, for the Bodies people to procure and plasticize your corpses, correct? You know, they could fix you in the lotus position, or have you flying around a stripper pole…
Cadavers do provide tremendous educational value–I’ve had the privilege of studying them. But the people who donated their bodies for this purpose consented to it.
@15: Yay! I just realised that the exhibit I saw in Toronto was actually legit (I thought the Toronto Science Centre was better than this). I feel so much better. Yeah, Body Worlds was awesome. It was so packed in Toronto that they kept the Science Centre open all night and you had to book tickets for what time you’d enter. So, we ended up going at 2am and it was weird and surreal and reminded me of the first year of my undergrad being in anatomy labs surrounded by dead body parts until you started to have nightmares.
Body Worlds was awesome.
I remember first hearing about the Bodies exhibit from the Discovery Channel, then later I started seeing it in movies (wasn’t it in Casino Royale?) and I got to thinking… “nobody has a problem with this?!” Millions of people get their panties in a bunch because “heather has two mommies” is in their local library, but an actual affront to human dignity like this goes on without any challenge? It’s good to know Seattle is doing something about it, even if that’s just a $250 fine.
I’m pretty sure they brought this to Science World a couple of years ago. it was pretty amazing….but also incredibly creepy.
@21: I’m pretty sure Vancouver got Body Worlds — the original and ethical one. I think Portland got that one too. I saw it in L.A., and @19 mentions seeing it in Vancouver.
Only in Seattle does commerce outweigh science so completely that the public and its Councilors know only of the sketchy for-profit one.
@22: I meant that @19 saw it in Toronto.
Body Worlds has played hundreds of cities; science museums are its default destinations. I’m not sure if it would ever appear in a convention center or downtown storefront.
Body Worlds ethical? Ha! Who do you think created the plastination plant in China
(much easier to get fresh bodies in China when you’ve been kicked out of Germany)
and admitted some of his cadavers had bullet holes in the back of their heads?