The Anatomists

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, Head of Ethics at the BMA, gives her opinions on Gunter von Hagens and Body Worlds:

As a doctor, I don't see dissected bodies as entertaining, I see them as purely educational. And if it moves into entertainment I start to be concerned about the loss of dignity and the loss of respect that is so important in the way in which we look at human beings.

The key issue in terms of display of body parts in the United Kingdom is that we are living with the legacy of Alder Hey, Bristol and other hospitals, and there is a particularly extreme sensitivity and sensibility at the moment. It's clear that families want to be in control of what happens to the body parts of a deceased relative or, indeed, their own body parts if a body part's been removed and they're a survivor. They want to know that it's treated with dignity, that it's going to be used for teaching, for education, for research, for improving the lot of others. And they want to know how it's going to be disposed of. They don't want it used for the purposes of frippery, and they certainly don't want it just stuck in a jar somewhere and left and ignored. The question that those families are going to ask about the exhibition is whether it is about education or about entertainment. If it's about education then they may feel that there is a legitimacy to it. If it's simply about entertainment I think most will feel that it reinforces the lack of dignity that is sometimes applied to people who have died or to body parts of those who have died.

The question is whether we believe that people have the right to expect that their bodies will be treated with respect after they die. In the UK we know that if you're found dead in suspicious circumstances there will be a post-mortem, but you don't expect that your body will then go on public display. However, this may not be seen as inappropriate in other countries. We then have to decide whether we believe it to be fundamentally ethically wrong, in which case we should not allow the display of bodies that have been made available by these means. If you go to see an exhibition of material which has been unethically obtained, then I think there is a serious question about whether you are implicitly complying with the unethical activity.

The BMA was asked whether we would promote this exhibition to our members or, indeed, to the public. We replied that we felt that, because of the Alder Hey cases, it was a particularly inappropriate time, that the exhibition had a very strong possibility of causing severe distress to a number of people. Not only would we not promote it, but we felt that really serious thought ought to be given to whether it was appropriate to have the exhibition in the UK either at all, or certainly at this time.