A story in The Guardian earlier this week reports that cosmetic products made in China from the skin of executed prisoners is being marketed in the United Kingdom. Sounds like the nice lampshades and wallets made out of Jews in the 1940s. Only with one difference, in this case no one seems to mind that much.
There is no outrage in The Guardian's reporting. Only the briefest suggestion that this might be immoral or wrong in some way. It's not technically illegal. A "grey area" they say. I thought Europeans were generally so anti-capital punishment. But, I guess, since they're from China, the likelihood that these prisoners were Christians or champions of democracy is great. Killing such folk doesn't seem to irritate Europeans as much as it used to.
In the article, much was made of the fact that using human remains to make cosmetics is culturally acceptable to the Chinese. It's hard to miss the implication that we shouldn't be too quick to impose our benighted Western values on another culture.
But I'd bet you a coke that if these cosmetics are tested on lab animals first, there'll be picketing in the streets of London.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Cosmetics sold in UK Made From Human Remains
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5 comments:
I just wonder if some of that makeup makes it to Walmart or other retailers in the US. I think I will warn my wife to be on the look out for Chinese makeup.
This has to be a joke right? How is it acceptable to use human remains in cosmetics, but the minute someone uses a mouse for something people go all up in arms?
How much longer until Soylent Green? :)
Dan,
You are funny because that is EXACTLY what came to my mind as well!
Collagen is available from many sources, among them, the dead.
This has nothing to do with Western or Eastern or Northern or Southern values - in Christ, there is no east, nor west. The government adviser Andrew Butler says he can see the "utility" of it, as "they have no ethical objection". Does he?
Collagen comes from the dead from love of Mammon.
I hope that the PRC will stop this practice when it is ready to quit its mass public executions before major audiences, usually of alleged petty criminal offenders, which are not only enormous violence but an ugly spectacle that the masses are expected to witness to make them know powerlessness.
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