---
title: "Body Worlds"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Worlds"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:19:10.920928+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Religious objections ===
Religious groups, including some rabbis have objected to the display of human remains, stating that it is inconsistent with reverence towards the human body. A group of Catholic Christians voiced their opinions towards the Body Worlds exhibition in a reflection paper written by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. This was in response to the arrival of the Body Worlds Exhibition in the Milwaukee Public Museum in 2014. The group were largely in favour of the exhibition due to its educational goals. But, the paper also discussed fears surrounding whether the exhibit's educational aims were secondary to the experience of voyeurism. There were also concerns over the display of plastinated fetuses, due to beliefs surrounding abortion.

=== Sex plastinate ===
In 2003, while promoting a display in the Hamburg Museum of Erotica, von Hagens announced his intention to create a sex plastinate. In May 2009 he unveiled a plastinate of a couple having sex, intended for a Berlin exhibition.

=== Lessening donor organ availability ===
In 2007, the Bishop of Manchester launched a campaign to coincide with the opening of Body Worlds in that city, accusing the exhibitors of being "body snatchers" and "robbing the NHS", arguing that donation of bodies for plastination would deprive the National Health Service of organs for transplant. The site included a government petition calling for "a review of the law regarding the policies and practices of touring shows involving corpses".

=== Press limitations ===
Von Hagens has maintained tight copyright control over pictures of his exhibits. Visitors were not allowed to take pictures, and press photographers were required to sign restrictive agreements permitting only a single publication in a defined context, followed by a return of the copyright to von Hagens. Because of a similar agreement applied to sound bites (O-Töne, in German) a German press organization suggested that the press refrain from reporting about the exhibition in Munich in 2003. In recent years, the restriction on photography has been relaxed for personal non-publication use only.

=== Sale of plastinates ===
Von Hagen’s website offers plastinated pieces for sale. There are a wide range of products from plastinated fruit jewelry to entire humans. Although some of the pieces require purchasers to be a qualified user—those intending to use the pieces for "research, educational, medical or therapeutic purposes"—many pieces, including animal testicles and baby chicks, require no authorization. There are also extremely realistic plastinate impressions of human hearts and slices (including one slice of copulating humans) for sale to the general public.

== Competitors ==
The success of Body Worlds has given rise to several similar shows featuring plastinated cadavers, including BODIES... The Exhibition and Our Body: The Universe Within in the United States, Bodies Revealed in the United Kingdom, Body Exploration in Taiwan, Mysteries of the Human Body in South Korea, Jintai Plastomic: Mysteries of the Human Body in Japan, Cuerpos Entrañables in Spain.
Some of these contain exhibits very similar to von Hagens' plastinates; von Hagens has asserted copyright protection, and has sued Body Exploration and Bodies Revealed.
The suits were based on a presumed copyright of certain positions of the bodies, but the counterparty asserts that the human body in its diversity cannot be copyrighted.
Such lawsuits have not stopped the competition. While the Korean police in Seoul confiscated a few exhibits from Bodies Revealed, the exhibition went on successfully.
Several of the competing exhibitions have been organized by the publicly traded US company Premier Exhibitions. They started their first Bodies Revealed exhibition in Blackpool, England which ran from August through October 2004. In 2005 and 2006 the company opened their Bodies Revealed and BODIES... The Exhibition exhibitions in Seoul, Tampa, Miami, New York City, and Seattle. Other exhibition sites in 2006 were Mexico City; Atlanta, Georgia, US; London; and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Unlike Body Worlds, none of the competing exhibitions or their suppliers have a body donation programme. Dr Roy Glover, a spokesperson for BODIES... The Exhibition said all their exhibits use unclaimed cadavers from China, a category which the Laogai Research Foundation has charged could include executed prisoners. In May 2008, a settlement with the attorney general of New York obliged Premier Exhibitions to offer refunds to visitors when it could not prove consent for the use of the bodies in its exhibitions. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo commented: "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."

== See also ==
Bodies: The Exhibition
Embalming
Mummification
Organ transplantation in China
Plastination
Musée Fragonard d'Alfort museum of historical écorchés

== References ==