Published October 31, 2025
Ethically Sourced ‘Spare’ Human Bodies Could Revolutionize Medicine.”
That was the strange title of a fairly recent article in MIT Technology Review, in which three Stanford biologists and ethicists argue for the use of so-called bodyoids in science and medicine. This infelicitous term refers to human bodies created from stem cells—bodies that have been genetically altered so that they lack brains, and thus, presumably, are without consciousness. The authors acknowledge that we do not yet have the technical capability to create such beings, but recent advances in stem cells, gene editing, and artificial uteri “provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain.”
Strictly speaking, artificial uteri are not necessary for the development of bodyoids. A reprogrammed embryo could theoretically be created in a lab and implanted in a woman’s uterus, as is done with in vitro fertilization (IVF). But the notion that an entity regarded as subhuman should be born from a human mother seems too gruesome even for these bioethical pioneers to contemplate.
The authors admit that many will find the prospect of bodyoids disturbing, but they argue that a “potentially unlimited source” of “spare” human bodies will be immensely useful and should be pursued. We could, for example, harvest the organs of these presumably nonsentient humans and conduct experiments on them in order to test drugs and other medical interventions.
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Aaron Kheriaty, MD, is the Director of the Bioethics, Technology, and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a physician specializing in psychiatry who has published over one hundred articles and five books, including most recently, Making the Cut: How to Heal Modern Medicine.
