Going off the discussion we had on Tuesday about the Mutter Museum I wanted to bring up the issue of having rights to our own body after we die. I know today we have will's that inform people what we want to be done with our body after we die but is there not a unspoken right for the dead? I'm pretty sure now people have to actually have to sign off on having there body being used for medical reasons. Thinking of the people in the Mutter Museum, did the doctors just assume that because the people are dead that it did not matter if they had permission to dissect and show case the bodies? Perhaps in the name of saving others that the right of the dead is over looked but I know if I were family of the people in the museum I would want to take the remains and lay them to rest. Also if I personally had some "freak" thing about my body I would not want it to be put on display for everyone to see after I died. Perhaps if it helped people I would let them use me to test on but why put me out there as entertainment? They are just personifying the fact that I am a freak.
I also feel that Mutter Museum is somewhat dehumanizing the remains they have. Using only certain parts of peoples bodies makes it seem that that is the only important part about them. They are forgetting that all those remains were apart of someone; someone who had a life, no matter how short it might have been.
-Erica Nelson
I think you have made a good point about the rights of the bodies being used in the Mutter Museum, considering it probably often goes unnoticed. I agree that it isn't right that there are potentially displays in the Mutter Museum that have no consent given to be displayed. I wouldn't want to be displayed in a museum for a "freakish' future, as most people probably wouldn't. So just because a learning factor plays a role does that overrule someones rights of their body and what they want done with their body, even after death?
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