An Ethicist on Who Owns Your Body

For a look at the thinking behind the debate, work your way through Alta Charo's (she's the one who called Wesley Smith on his "human-centric" views and the rest of us in the right wing and pro-life community on our "endarkenment" at the conference on Bioethics and Politics in July. She's also a founding member of the Progressive Bioethics center with Moreno and Caplan.) essay and/or the audio interview in the New England Journal of Medicine. (free, online)

My opinion? Your body belongs to you. If the tissues were not removed with full consent, including fairly specific information that the tissue would be used in research, then it cannot be used without compensation and legal permission - again with full informed consent.