ANCHORAGE, Alaska—
They’re real human bodies frozen in time through a process called plastination.The Body Worlds Vital exhibition makes its Alaska debut next month at the Anchorage Museum.
"We want to show to the public, the wonder of the human body, the intricacies of the human body, and how the human body can inspire better health,” said museum director James Pepper Henry.
Henry says museum members were surveyed on what on the kind of exhibitions they would want to see and an overwhelming majority wanted Body Worlds, but that doesn't mean everyone is happy about it.
"I find the exhibit morally problematic at a minimum, and I would not encourage parents with young children to take them there," said Father Tom Lilly, the Vicar-General in the Anchorage Catholic Diocese.
A recent article in the Catholic Anchor, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Anchorage criticized the exhibit for showing bodies in the same manner rocks and plants are put on display.
"The Catholic Church has held that you can always donate your body to science,” said Lilly. “But even in that sense, when science is finished with that body, they provide a proper end burial, and I don't know what the proper end for the bodies in this exhibit are."
The moral dilemma over the exhibit doesn't seem to be discouraging many people from seeing it. A similar cadaver display called is coming to the state fair later this month.
"When people come to see this exhibit, they're taken aback, they're somewhat in awe, and you really see yourself differently, when you go to this exhibit for the first time," fair spokesman Dean Phipps said.
Both the Anchorage Museum and the Alaska State Fair say they thoroughly vetted these exhibits to make sure they were 100 percent ethical with how they handled the corpses.
Admission to the exhibit at the state fair is free with a fair ticket. Anchorage Museum officials are asking parents to check out their website if they have any concerns about whether the exhibit is appropriate for children.
