T
tabsie3210
Guest
When Bodyworlds came to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, my friends dragged me there to see it (this was several years ago, the first time the exhibit showed up).
I was in the middle of a major depression down and totally freaked because I had bad death anxiety. (Yes, I’ve mentioned it a billion times before, but that’s how bad it bothers me - I can’t shake it loose).
Now, I recently read my favorite author, Dean Koontz. He has a new book out called YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME. I can talk about this because it doesn’t give away the plot, so don’t worry.
At one point the main character breaks into the home of a man who has several dead bodies, all covered in plasticine the way the Body Worlds “mummies” were (can anyone think of anything better than “display,” “mummies,” or “dead bodies” to describe these poor people?).
It’s obvious that Koontz dislikes Body Worlds. Here’s an excerpt:
The depth of emotion that the students showed on behalf of their cadavers was overwhelming. One woman doctor-in-training sang “In The Arms of the Angels” at the service. Several others talked about how important the people that they practiced on were to them. That they’d come to love these people, as people, both for their sacrifice - they donated their bodies to science for the betterment of humanity, after all - and for the fact that as they learned, the doctors-in-training became exquisitly aware of the humanity of the people they worked on. These people had lives, families, jobs once, they were once just like the doctors, alive and in good health, joyful and sorrowful, and the doctors-in-training came to having a deep respect for them as individual people.
How different the experience of seeing the exhibit and the newscast! On the one hand, a diminishing of the human experience - cadavers posed as if they were playing cards, one of a woman hung upside down as if on a trapeez, an exhibit of BABIES that left me chilled and crying - and on the other, a deep, profound respect for human life, and a love of individuals, brought about by close contact with death.
IS it moral to leave one’s body to science these days? I’d have no issue if my body were to be experimented on after my death if it meant the possibilties for new cures, or that a new generation of compassionate physicians was able to learn, or that someone in need of organs I no longer have a use for can live a longer, fuller life. I don’t need my body after death. God will bring it back when it’s time. God is all powerful and ever-living. I have pure faith in Him.
But how does it benefit society if I’m coated in plastic and displayed like a fun-house spook? It’s not the kind of thing I want - I want to know, if I surrender my body to science, that my personal dignity won’t be jeopardized by someone else’s “vision.” I’m a work of art only in the sense that God created me as a unique individual. Out of love He maintians me, body and soul, and He will maintain my soul after death. Out of love He has given me more riches than I can count. I’m not made to be a doll. To be vivisected, have my organs shown off like some kind of toy, be posed so I look like I’m playing tennis, minus skin and clothes.
Body Worlds horrified me. Is there any justification for such an exhibit? I have boycotted it since that one visit. Nothing impresses me about it, not even a little bit.
I was in the middle of a major depression down and totally freaked because I had bad death anxiety. (Yes, I’ve mentioned it a billion times before, but that’s how bad it bothers me - I can’t shake it loose).
Now, I recently read my favorite author, Dean Koontz. He has a new book out called YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME. I can talk about this because it doesn’t give away the plot, so don’t worry.
At one point the main character breaks into the home of a man who has several dead bodies, all covered in plasticine the way the Body Worlds “mummies” were (can anyone think of anything better than “display,” “mummies,” or “dead bodies” to describe these poor people?).
It’s obvious that Koontz dislikes Body Worlds. Here’s an excerpt:
Recently there was a story on the news about medical students here in Houston who were giving their cadavers a memorial service. During their training, student doctors practice on human cadavers, naturally. They have to practice somehow.
The depth of emotion that the students showed on behalf of their cadavers was overwhelming. One woman doctor-in-training sang “In The Arms of the Angels” at the service. Several others talked about how important the people that they practiced on were to them. That they’d come to love these people, as people, both for their sacrifice - they donated their bodies to science for the betterment of humanity, after all - and for the fact that as they learned, the doctors-in-training became exquisitly aware of the humanity of the people they worked on. These people had lives, families, jobs once, they were once just like the doctors, alive and in good health, joyful and sorrowful, and the doctors-in-training came to having a deep respect for them as individual people.
How different the experience of seeing the exhibit and the newscast! On the one hand, a diminishing of the human experience - cadavers posed as if they were playing cards, one of a woman hung upside down as if on a trapeez, an exhibit of BABIES that left me chilled and crying - and on the other, a deep, profound respect for human life, and a love of individuals, brought about by close contact with death.
IS it moral to leave one’s body to science these days? I’d have no issue if my body were to be experimented on after my death if it meant the possibilties for new cures, or that a new generation of compassionate physicians was able to learn, or that someone in need of organs I no longer have a use for can live a longer, fuller life. I don’t need my body after death. God will bring it back when it’s time. God is all powerful and ever-living. I have pure faith in Him.
But how does it benefit society if I’m coated in plastic and displayed like a fun-house spook? It’s not the kind of thing I want - I want to know, if I surrender my body to science, that my personal dignity won’t be jeopardized by someone else’s “vision.” I’m a work of art only in the sense that God created me as a unique individual. Out of love He maintians me, body and soul, and He will maintain my soul after death. Out of love He has given me more riches than I can count. I’m not made to be a doll. To be vivisected, have my organs shown off like some kind of toy, be posed so I look like I’m playing tennis, minus skin and clothes.
Body Worlds horrified me. Is there any justification for such an exhibit? I have boycotted it since that one visit. Nothing impresses me about it, not even a little bit.