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“Bodies” exhibit an insult

If you research the ABC News 20/20 report on “Bodies the Exhibition,” you’ll be disgusted and wonder why the Mobius Science Center would display individuals so you could see them skinned, trimmed and pickled in plastic.

These bodies come from China. Dr. Gunter VonHoggen of Gubben, Germany, who invented the plastination process, receives bodies from people who have voluntarily and legally consented. But he has stopped working with companies in China because he believes he’s received several bodies who were executed prisoners.

Since 2006, it’s been illegal to export human bodies or body parts from China. But the Chinese black market picks up dead bodies at night, some with their hands still tied behind their backs, and sells them to run down plasticizing warehouses in northern China for $200 each. U.S. law is skirted by having these bodies marked as “Plastic Model for Medical Teaching.” These deceased people are no more a model than a mannequin is a human being.

Anyone who pays money to see this moral insult shows a lack of respect for these lives that once lived. Ask yourself, would you want your loved ones plasticized and then gawked at by strangers?

John Gomez

Spokane Valley



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