Bones of Contention
perspectives. One can perceive it as a medically interesting skeleton, as a
doctor might; or, as an installation provoking an intricate series of legal
questions, as a lawyer might. Alternatively one might simply experience
it as an awe-inspiring collection of enormous bones, as a visitor to the
Hunterian might. Yet for doctor, lawyer and museum-goer alike the exhibit is also in some sense personally relevant to each observer. The
author offers three observations in support of this proposition.
Firstly, like Byrne, most spectators are likely to have developed some
set of personal intentions in life that they seek to project onto what will
become of their own remains in death. For example, an individual might
intend his or her dead body to: be given to medical science; undergo a
religious burial or a humanist cremation; or, be left to the devices of
surviving relations and loved ones so that they can do as they wish as a
natural part of the grieving process. Secondly, and again like Byrne, in
order for these wishes to be borne out one cannot rely on the law, due
particularly to the fact that one’s burial wishes do not carry legal force.
Thirdly, and again like Byrne, what one does rely on is the moral force
attaching to one’s posthumous intentions and, in tandem with this, upon
family, loved ones, and the wider community to accord those wishes a
requisite level of respect.
The Byrne exhibit, therefore, is personally symbolic because, like Byrne,
each contemporary individual relies in death upon respect for the wishes
and choices that he or she has articulated in life.
Issues pertaining to the treatment of Byrne’s skeleton remain unresolved.
Medical ethicist Len Doyal and the present author have drawn attention
to the following (Doyal and Muinzer 2011: 1292):
Past research on Byrne did not require the display of his skeleton;
merely medical access to it. Moreover, now that Byrne’s DNA has
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