Alien Autopsy Ethics

[Gil Hamilton]

With the story of Roswell and stories like it where the bodies of alien astronauts are recovered, there are invariably parts of the story where some of the alien bodies are not only examined but are dissected by medical doctors. They're physically examined, biological samples are taken, their stomache or equivlent contents documented, and their biochemistry probed. This seems all very good scientifically. Naturally, you are going to want to know alot about them biologically since it is likely the first time anyones seen an alien, let alone had alien tissue and organs to analyze.

However, there seems to be an obvious problem with that. In any of our military or space programs, we don't just leave alone when accidents happen, we try and recover, if at all possible, any survivors or to very least bring their bodies home for burial. Why would alien astronauts act differently? Chances are, unless they are totally different than us personality wise (which, I suppose, is possible), they are going to immediately launch a rescue and recovery mission to bring home their downed astronauts, or at least to give them whatever last rites said aliens give each other. Chances are try are going to track them down eventually, since they can't possibly have gone very far.

What do you think their reaction is going to be when they find out their mission team was recovered by the locals and systematically dissected, with most of their internal structure removed and potentially shipped all over, and what's left buried in the ground? They could on one tentacle think it was understandable and admit they'd probably have done the same thing, but they also could be royally pissed that we didn't respect their dead and dessecrated their bodies on top of it!

There are two ethical principles I can think of that would make me not want to dissect them, despite the obviously vast amount of scientific knowledge scientists could accure from their body.

One is the fact that they are our bodies to dissect. Aside from taking notes on their outward appearance and examining what ever bodily fluid came out of them due to damage, they, nor anyone else responsible for such things, gave premission to perform a dissection on them. We don't just use our own dead for scientific research without permission, and we certainly haven't received it from the dead alien astronauts families or even their comrades. The right thing to do without further information would be to respect the dead. However, that's the weaker of the two arguments.

The stronger of the two arguments is, as said above, their comrades aren't simply going to abandon them to us. However, one thing we do know that will be true of them is that their very presence on Earth means they've got vastly superior technology than our own. Simple self-preservation states that scientific knowledge is all well and good, but we gon't want our first impression on the aliens to be that we are savages who dessecrated their dead without any regard for their customs or even as fellow sapients. Worse, I know how'd we react if the situation was reversed; if aliens recovered our dead from an accident and dissected them like specimens in a lab, we'd be righteously pissed, even if they insisted it wasn't anything personal and quickly gave back everything they found. It seems the best way to make first contact a good one (in order to make our place in the cosmos a bit less tenuous) would be to very carefully preserve their bodies as much as possible in an inevasive way so when their comrades come to recover them, we can say that we respected their dead and wanted to return the bodies untouched as possible for them to be recovered.

Thoughts on this? Is the scientific information we'd get from full on autopsy and dissection worth it? Or should we leave their dead alone as much as possible, out of respect or fear?

[darthkommandant]

In human history wars have been fought because of similar issues. Since the Alien civilization is certianly way more advanced technologically than we are, we should definitly not do a complete dissection since the alien reaction might be violent. A good compromise is to take a CAT scan and a blood sample and than preserve the bodies so we can give them back to the aliens. Also the aliens probably have medical books similar to Gray's Anatomy that could give us most of the information we would get by dissection. Its probably better to respect the dead as much as posible and give the bodies back to them as soon as they land.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

With the story of Roswell and stories like it where the bodies of alien astronauts are recovered, there are invariably parts of the story where some of the alien bodies are not only examined but are dissected by medical doctors. They're physically examined, biological samples are taken, their stomache or equivlent contents documented, and their biochemistry probed. This seems all very good scientifically. Naturally, you are going to want to know alot about them biologically since it is likely the first time anyones seen an alien, let alone had alien tissue and organs to analyze.

<snip>

There are two ethical principles I can think of that would make me not want to dissect them, despite the obviously vast amount of scientific knowledge scientists could accure from their body.

It is arguable that an alien crash site would become a Superfund site, owing to the potential contamination issues involved. An alien spaceship crashing to Earth may bring a cargo of microbes which may adapt to life on Earth and prove gravely troublesome to us. It may have chemicals and toxic materials aboard/as part of its construction (like hydrazine for thrusters, for instance.) It may spew dangerous radioactive materials from a fission reactor, or from the neutron-radiated walls of fusion vessel. Leaking antimatter from an antimatter powerplant will almost certain render the surrounding environment highly radioactive. We would almost certainly not leave a wrecked spaceship alone for that reason alone. Self-preservation dictates that we send men and women in hazmat suits to gather up the wreckage, corpses and any contaminated Earthly materians and seal them away in guarded warehouses and analyze them in sealed laboratories. You'd probably also evacuate the immedate area around the crash site.

If the aliens want their wreckage back, then by all means we should give it back to them. They'll probably get the bodies back intact too, as we probably wouldn't conduct a full-scale dissection of an alien (at least not until we determined it was safe to do so,) though we'd take small samples that can be safely frozen and analyzed.

[Broomstick]

We routinely autopsy people who die as a result of accidents or diseases, and also any bodies that are simply found beside roads or in cisterns or in the woods or what have you. In most of these instances permission is not asked, and indeed one would have to go to the courts to stop an autopsy of a murder victim.

So, on that level, we wouldn't be treating the aliens much different, if at all different, than our own who may be the victim(s) of accident or misfortune.

Terrestrial experience with differing burial customs performed on explorers and soldiers dying in distant lands shows that, while the family may experience some distress at not having their particular customs followed, there is also considerable understanding if the remains are treated in a manner honorable in the culture where the death takes place. The families may want the bodies/other remains back for 'proper" burial (or whatever) but do comprehend that the folks retaining the remains showed sensitivity and honor towards them within the context of their culture. (Note that this only applies to honorably treated remains - those delibrately mistreated are a different category).

So, an "alien autopsy", if conducted in a similar manner to a human autopsy with proper disposal of, uh, "leftovers" is arguably treating them with the same respect (or lack of) we'd treat ourselves. And is a damn sight less tacky than having the parts sold on eBay. I mean, really, what did you think a human autopsy involved?

Of course, there's no telling how any group of intelligent beings is going to react. They could descend upon us and extract dire payment for our actions. On the other hand, these aliens could also just simply accept that if you buy the farm on a primative world you're going to get sliced and diced, shrug their shoulder-equivalents, and carry on.

[Molyneux]

Well, I know how one alien reacted to seeing himse-...his broth-...another alien autopsied and dissected...

"You dirty rats! You're the rats who killed my broth-uh, whatever!"


In real life, if they died as a result of a crash I'd say we would be obligated to autopsy to try to determine the cause of death; if we find one of them alive, we should make every attempt to save him/her/kwizblort, but since we generally autopsy humans who have died in accidents, we've got good cause to do the same to them.

After the autopsies, of course, it'd definitely be in our best interests to treat the remains respectfully, in case the other aliens want the corpses back.

[Gil Hamilton]

So, an "alien autopsy", if conducted in a similar manner to a human autopsy with proper disposal of, uh, "leftovers" is arguably treating them with the same respect (or lack of) we'd treat ourselves. And is a damn sight less tacky than having the parts sold on eBay. I mean, really, what did you think a human autopsy involved.

I thought human remains being used for research and experimentation required permission.

[Broomstick]

Yes and no.

First of all, just because the law requires something doesn't mean that something actually happens. But for the moment, we'll leave the illegal cases out of the discussion.

Some data can be used without permission if personal data is stripped from it. For example - research involving the number of people stabbed in a region over time, average number of stab wounds per victim, and so forth. This would require access to autopsy information, of course, but of a depersonalized nature. Permission isn't asked for such use.

Archeological finds - i.e. mummies, skeletons, etc. - have long been considered fair game for research purposes, although this is now being challenged by indigenous/aboriginal groups in courts in various locations.

There would be some fuzzy lines on the ethical questions in the proposed circumstance. But from a human perspective certainly some data collection and use could be justified.

[Hawkwings]

I see this as being a likely scenario. Say we recover a half-dozen alien bodies. We to everything we can to study all of them non-invasively, then we preserve 4 of them, and dissect the remaining two. When the aliens ask what happened to the other two, we say "What other two? We only recovered 4 bodies." The spaceship *crashed*, after all, and it's not inconceivable that two bodies weren't recovered.

Of course, it's not without its risks, but neither is any other plan.

[Wyrm]

There's always the possibility that in a crash, several aliens might come "pre-opened", as it were. In that case, you'll gain some anatomical knowledge regardless. (Autopsy on an intact body is the best, but aliens' funeral customs are not something I want to cross lightly.)