Your Body Parts and the Law

Do we own our own body parts? What can we do with them? Can we sell them and control what others do with them? People often say, "it’s my body", but the law is much more complex. 

This lecture explains the law on body part ownership, tracing it from the early legal cases through the body-snatching years of the Victorian period, to the present day. Should we use the law of property to regulate human tissue?

A lecture by Imogen Goold

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/body-law

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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