You don't own your body

Did you know that you don't own your own body? Legally speaking, that is. You have control over it, but you don't own it.

To me that's odd. Commonly speaking, we think that our bodies are ours to do with as we please. The idea that a woman's body is her own to decide what she does with it has been a cornerstone of feminist thought for decades now. And it's true, a woman does have the right to control her own body.

But she doesn't own it.

That's thanks to patent law. If tissues from your body are used to create a vaccine, or a treatment, or a cell line for research purposes, you no longer 'own' any part of that subsequent process. You might own the raw material i.e. your body, and you can control that raw material. But as soon as a bioscientist takes that raw material and applies a process to it, which the scientist patents, you no longer have any interest (legally speaking) in that technology and cannot control how it is used, or ask for compensation for it.

The way our legislation has been written, tissue that is removed from the body is considered waste, which means the person whose body it was removed from no longer has a claim over it.

I'm simplifying things significantly, but this is the general interpretation of the law as seen in John Moore vs. the Regents of the University of California. Having read segments of the judgment, I suspect this is the court case that Michael Crichton is referring to in Next, his novel about the patenting of human life. If you're looking for an airplane novel, this one's a good one. Though, then again, most Crichton novels are airplane novels.

But as you're reading the novel, just keep in mind that although you control the body that's reading it, you don't own it.