Is it right that children’s body parts be used in the cosmetic industry – even if the tissues used are extracted legally? A new book by Professor Donna Dickenson examines the growth in what she calls ‘Body shopping’. From the trafficking of women for their eggs, through to the international organ trade from executed Chinese prisoners, she asks how far biotechnology has gone. And are clinics which store the umbilical cords of newborn babies for future medical research part of the same spectrum? Where does acceptable ‘body shopping’ begin and end?
