People on Floors: Creating Relics Out of Medical Waste

This article examines three debates over the nature of human specimens: anatomical dissection in Victorian Britain, the question of ownership over Henrietta Lacks’s cells, and recent debates over how to treat remnants of abortion. These cases reveal that specimens are deeply connected to human persons and should be considered with a particular kind of care. The author uses Andrew Solomon’s concept of horizontal kinship to support reframing medical waste as “relics”—objects of veneration interpreted as revealing truth about the human experience. Envisioning medical waste as relics allows us to wonder at the ability of the body to provide transformative knowledge, which leads to practices of appreciation to honor the sacrifices of the body.