Chinese Corpses Still on Display in the U.S.

August 7, 2008— -- Click here to read an update on this story.

In the shadow of the Beijing Olympics, U.S. state legislators are pushing forward new laws that would tighten business practices for importing cadavers from China.

Earlier this week Pennsylvania state lawmakers debated a bill that would require companies that exhibit the remains of human bodies to obtain consent forms from body donors. Such legislation could set the stage the for passage of bills in other states, and give a boost to federal legislation introduced earlier this year that would completely ban all importation of body parts into the United States. [Click here to read Blotter coverage of the legislation]

"This is a human rights issue we ought to be concerned with," said Democratic Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee chairman, who held a hearing on the state bill Tuesday.

Such action is necessary, Caltagirone said, because he doubts he can trust body verification coming from the Chinese government.

Penn. State Rep. Mike Fleck (R), who has introduced the bill, echoed that concern. "In America you can't sell your body. To use someone's body against their will in life or death is exploitation."

The bill came as a result of an ABC News 20/20 investigation into Premier Exhibitions, a publicly traded company that displays the remains of "unclaimed" Chinese people across the country and around the world for about $25 a ticket. The investigation found that the bodies on display could have been those of executed prisoners.

The bill still faces hurdles. Caltagirone said it will likely take until the start of 2009 to move the bill from the Pennsylvania House to the Senate.

Still, Fleck said in an interview that he thinks the bill is having a ripple effect. So far Calif. State representative Fiona Ma, (D-San Francisco) introduced a similar bill and, Fleck said, state representatives from as far as Hawaii have contacted him in support of the bill, saying that they are interested in introducing their own.

During testimony Tuesday, human rights activist Harry Wu, who spent more than 19 years in a Chinese prison for speaking out against the government, showed gruesome photos of prisoners executions in China, which shocked members of the committee. One group of photos Wu showed displayed the bodies of four people shot execution style. The corpses, he said, were being prepared for plastination -- a process to preserve human bodies -- that Wu said could have gone to Premier's supplier.