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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Jackie Dent

My grandparents donated their bodies to science. I needed to know what happens after

Australian journalist and writer Jackie Dent at her home in Sydney, NSW.
‘I know the enormous contribution that the dissected have made to medicine … We are alive because of them’: Australian journalist and writer Jackie Dent. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian

Dissection might not be a normal topic to contemplate but when both your paternal grandparents donate their bodies to science it does intermittently cross your mind. My grandmother Ruby’s body went to the University of Queensland in 1969 and my grandfather Julie’s in 1981. Yes, that was his name.

The fact that both my grandparents’ bodies were dissected for science has always lurked within the family. For years, I’ve seen it as a slightly intriguing thing, quietly spectacular. A radical but slightly weird postscript to their ordinary lives. I mean, why would anyone do that?

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