This article has been corrected. A note of correction is appended to the article.
The New York Attorney General's office announced on Friday a settlement that requires the exhibitors of preserved corpses to be accountable for where they get the bodies.
The settlement with Premier Exhibitions, the proprietor of "Bodies: The Exhibition," which displays skinless corpses in animated life-like positions, will need to establish for any future bodies added to the exhibition the consent of the deceased, along with written documentation for the source of the body and the cause of death.
"The grim reality is that Premier Exhibitions has profited from displaying the remains of individuals who may have been tortured and executed in China," said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, in a press release.
"Despite repeated denials, we now know that Premier itself cannot demonstrate the circumstances that led to the death of the individuals. Nor is Premier able to establish that these people consented to their remains being used in this manner," the release continued.
The settlement makes all those who visited the New York City "Bodies: The Exhibition" prior to the settlement eligible for ticket refunds.
The settlement also requires that Premier inform the public that "it is not able to confirm that the bodies and parts being displayed were not, or did not belong to, Chinese prisoners who may have been victims of torture and execution."
The corpses are preserved and animated through plastination, a technique in which the skin is removed and the bodily fluids drained and replaced with plastic.
Kirk Donahoe, assistant director of the Laogai Research Foundation, a non-profit organization that gathers information on China's extensive system of forced labor camps and documents systemic human rights violations in China, said in a press release, "This investigation has shed light on how certain U.S. exhibitions profited from the execution of Chinese prisoners."
The Laogai Foundation calls upon "other law enforcement authorities to take similar action in other states and to help to bring these abuses to an end."
Other shows of "Bodies: The Exhibition" are currently being held in Nevada, New Jersey, Florida, Hawaii, and Ohio.
Elaine Katz was an education coordinator for the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for nearly 11 years until she resigned last year to protest the museum's decision to host "Bodies: The Exhibition."
"While many versions of the exhibit continue to travel around the country, ["Bodies: The Exhibition"] has now packed up and shipped out of Pittsburgh," said Elaine.
In April, Missouri Congressman Todd Akin introduced the bill H.R. 5677 that would prohibit the importation into the United States of plastinated human remains.
Both ethicists and scientists have protested these exhibits of unclaimed and unidentified cadavers.
Thomas Hibbs, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture at Baylor University, compared cadaver displays to pornography in that they reduce the subject to "the manipulation of body parts stripped of any larger human significance."
Concerns have been expressed about the educational aspects, especially the inclusion of these displays for school field trips. Critics say these shows don't so much educate as they do desecrate the human body for profit.
Aaron Ginsburg from Sharon, M.A., who has started a nationwide web site protesting the various body exhibits (http://dignityinboston.googlepages.com).
"These were people, who felt love, and pain, people with souls, with memories, and names… We are not purely mechanical devices, nuts and bolts, pieces that have functions, we are organic, we are spiritual, we are filled with a light that can not be displayed, but can at the very least be referred to..." read one comment on Ginsburg's site.
The article originally titled "Irreverent 'Bodies Exhibit' Breathes its Last in New York" and posted on June 3 erred in connecting Dr. Gunther von Hagens with the Bodies Exhibition that was shut down by the New York State Attorney General's Office. The Bodies Exhibition was presented by Premier Exhibitions and was not the work of Dr. Hagens, who has no connection to that exhibition and whose photograph should not have been published with the article. The article also erred in claiming that the New York show of "Bodies: The Exhibition" had been closed as a result of the settlement with the New York State Attorney General. It has not been. The Epoch Times regrets the errors.