The rise of informed consent and retreat from dependence upon unclaimed bodies in anatomy: An overview and assessment

The development of anatomy has been marked by ethically questionable practices. This has been because the dissection of human bodies has always existed on the periphery of conventional society, necessitating a range of dubious ways of obtaining dead bodies for educational and research purposes. Chief among these has been the use of unclaimed bodies, those obtained without the consent, and on occasion, knowledge of living relatives. This raises the question of the moral status of dead bodies and the place of informed consent in the practice of anatomy. While informed consent has become mandatory in the legislations of many countries, some argue that it is a Westernized concept. The argument here is that informed consent is a crucial ethical requirement for anatomists. By the 1960s legislation in the United Kingdom and similar countries, plus increasing awareness of ethical issues, brought to the fore informed consent and the necessity of using only body donations. This trajectory was strengthened by inquiries into organ retention scandals following postmortems that highlighted the basic ethical values for dealing with the remains of the dead. Nevertheless, there has been continued use of unclaimed bodies internationally, ushering in continued efforts to understand why this is the case and reasons why some indigenous groups reject body donation. It is concluded that except where there are mitigating circumstances, anatomists continuing to rely upon a supply of unclaimed bodies are neglecting the trajectory of ethical debate over the past 40 years.